


Like Father Like Son

by Sonora



Series: Love Bites 'verse [9]
Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Succubi & Incubi, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Family Drama, Family Feels, Flashbacks, Forced Prostitution, M/M, Mpreg, Multi, Past Rape/Non-con, Spanking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-31
Updated: 2015-07-02
Packaged: 2018-04-02 03:15:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 12
Words: 30,276
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4043737
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sonora/pseuds/Sonora
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Herc and Chuck come to Alaska to help the Becket brothers pick up the pieces after Knifehead.  But when Yancy's personal issues start getting in the way, Herc's going to have to force some discussions nobody wants to have.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Oh god... I promise more smut in this one, I swear. But I also regretfully must say that there will be much more pain. Because Yancy has been carrying a lot of stuff around and he needs to get it out (and where better to do that than naked in Herc's lap?)
> 
> And again, these were just supposed to be PWPs. Why did I have to start thinking about _plot_?

All in all, Chuck was beginning to like this mating bond thing. It’s taken all the things that were good before and made them even better. Daddy’s always been loving, ever since the change, and Chuck’s been able to feel him, since the Drift started, but now? It’s like being inside of him, wrapped up in that lovely warmth he carries in his heart, all the time. Plus, Daddy’s so full of cum, there’s no need to go anywhere else; Daddy’s libido’s running so hot, he’s practically an incubus himself.

And Chuck’s been feeling a little smug over the whole thing. He’s sixteen and pretty and punches alien sea monsters in the face for a living and feeds off sex with his smoking hot father. All the sex. As much of it as he wants. It’s awesome.

Except now there’s Raleigh to consider. Raleigh to worry about. And worrying about Raleigh - what Raleigh might take, what Chuck’s going to have to give - hurts.

Even if Yancy’s kind of a wanker, not talking to Daddy and all that, only phoning to drop this kind of news on them, Chuck might be kind of in love with the Beckets. They’re older and hotter and they pilot Gipsy Danger and they’re... they’re _them_. Raleigh talks to him almost every day, and Yancy emails all the time. They share loads of things, and not just the incubus stuff. That barrier’s still there - whenever Chuck asks Yancy to Skype, he gets all weird about it - but Chuck’s been hoping that’ll change.

He’d even accidentally thought about the Beckets during the mating, and now Daddy’s hornier than he needs to be. Chuck can’t help but wonder if maybe that was his subconscious trying to offer the Beckets a way in, making a place for them.

Or maybe Daddy’s body already knew about Raleigh’s. 

Which sucks. Because things are going to change, when they get to Alaska, and Chuck’s probably going to have to break the bond, and that’s the opposite of what he wanted. But even if things have to change now, he’s not going to lose all of this, right? Daddy will still want to fuck him, won’t he?

At least, if he has to give his daddy up, at least Chuck knows Daddy will be well taken care of. Daddy has needs too, of course; loads of them.

And maybe Yancy won’t be so funny about things anymore. Maybe Chuck and him could... Yancy’s basically Raleigh’s daddy, isn’t he? Maybe he wouldn’t mind taking Chuck in instead. Or maybe they could all get a house together, one of those nice breezy ones with the wrap-around porches. 

An incubus can dream, can't he?

“Whatcha thinking about there, baby?” Daddy asks, rubbing his cheek with the back of his knuckles.

Chuck keens up into the hand, dimly aware that this time last year, he’d probably be mortified at himself for doing so. But whatever. Being a human was no fun at all. Daddy never fucked him back then. This is much better. Sucks he’s going to be losing it.

“Thinking about how we didn’t even get brekkie this morning,” he lies, sliding up a little his daddy’s lap, curling his naked body into the space against his heart, Daddy’s arms hugging even tighter around him. “Not with as fast as we left.”

It’s tight in here, the fuselage of the PPDC VIP Gulfstream posh but cramped, no decent beds to be had, but the seats are big and they’re making it work. Chuck shed his clothes the second he got in the plane, Daddy making him wear one of the robes from the back closet in deference to the pilots. It should be annoying, but actually, it’s shaping up to be a very nice flight indeed. The robe is lovely and the pilots are pretty, and single. As soon as the plane gets to cruising altitude, with the auto-pilot turned safely on, Chuck’s gonna have them come back. 

An orgy for lunch. Just the thing he needs to get his mind off this. 

“Need to see Raleigh. With everything going on, what Yancy said...”

“I know,” Chuck says, not a little regretfully, and wraps himself around Daddy’s shoulders. “I’m not mad.”

Daddy smiles at him, soft and slow, and tilts his chin up for a kiss. “Don’t worry, sweetie. Whatever’s waitin’ for us, you’ll always be my son. I'll always love you.”

"Are you sure it's yours?"

"Yancy says these sorts of things don't just happen. Emotions have to be involved. Makes sense, I reckon, with everything..."

"...our people do," Chuck murmurs.

Over six months of drifting now, and Chuck knows how to hide things from Daddy. Even with the bond, he can still shield his thoughts. But he doesn't try to hide this, his thoughts about this. Emotions. Means Raleigh must have fallen in love, and it's not fucking fair. 

_I loved you first_

That smile doesn't waver though, and Daddy's hands pull him closer. "You know I don't judge you, or Raleigh, or Yancy, for that matter. You're good boys, all of you." Daddy kisses him gently, holding his face close, mouths barely apart. "And believe me, I can see the appeal. I'd almost be willing to ask you for the bite, if I didn't know how much my boys need their daddy human."

The words fill Chuck up to overflowing, so he opens up as far as he can go and lets Daddy feel it too. Daddy sighs, and kisses him deeper.

Chuck kisses Daddy back, savoring the sweetness for a moment, before popping his tail out, using the tip to work Daddy’s khakis open. Daddy’s balls are hot and heavy, his cock throbbing - he was always well-endowed, but since the bonding, he’s expanded to porn-star size - and for a little while, it’s enough for Chuck to simply _play_. He slides down Daddy’s thighs, bending nearly in half to suck and lick and lave.

But it’s really just not fair.

Why’d Raleigh have to go and get himself pregnant?


	2. Chapter 2

The Icebox sends a car for them, one of those big towncars that has the roll-up window to separate the cab from the passengers. It’s dark outside, the short Alaska winter day already over, the air bitterly cold, his heaviest jacket hardly enough to keep the chill away. 

Herc’s grateful to be on the ground. Chuck was just about getting fed up with being confined, and even now, there’s only so many times he can fuck the boy without his dick getting sore. Stacker’s in town too, flew in from Pearl Harbor to help mop up this disaster. Herc’s not looking forward to explaining this one to his old friend, but at least it meant no questions asked in getting here.

That call from Yancy yesterday - tomorrow? - morning had been strange. Herc’s still not sure what’s going on with him, why he’s so cold, but his discomfort on the phone had been palpable.

“Herc? I’m sorry to wake you up like this, but it’s Raleigh. I need your help with Raleigh.”

“Raleigh, yeah, of course mate.” He’d struggled up, out of the nest of pillows and blankets, Chuck clinging sleepily to his side. “This about Knifehead?”

“Knifehead, yeah. I’m sure you’ve heard through the grapevine...”

“Gipsy got destroyed.”

“Yeah. Our girl.”

Yancy’s voice was getting more and more agitated, and something about that hit all of Herc’s paternal instincts. “Son, what’s goin’ on? Last I heard, you boys were alright. Light injuries, grounded pending an inquiry. That’s no fun, but we’ve never had a jaeger go down before, so...”

“Knifehead hit the conn-pod, shorted out some electrical... whatever, Chuck would know. Raleigh passed out. I finished the fight by myself.”

That caught Herc’s full attention. There had been nothing about that in any of the official or unofficial PPDC reporting on the matter. "You okay?"

"They think I might have brain damage, but it's not a big deal."

"Yancy, brain damage is nothing to laugh at."

"Who gives a shit? We heal fast, I'll be fine."

Despite his frustration at it, Herc knew what would get a response out of Yancy. “What about your brother? Is Raleigh alright?”

“He’s in the clinic. I managed to keep them from sending him downtown, but Herc, I’m lying to the doctors right now, and it’s only a matter of time until somebody realizes our medical records say jack shit about Raleigh being trans and...”

“Trans? Wait, is that because of...”

“Umm... not exactly. Yeah, I mean, there is that. But like I said, it’s only a matter of time until somebody calls me on my bullshit about how he hasn’t been taking his pills and Raleigh hates people thinking he’s a girl and he’s kind of pissed at me. Probably cause of the fucking hormones right now, but it’s his goddamn fault for giving himself a full set of female pipes so I don't see how he can blame me for having to lie about it...”

Herc waved a hand, even though Yancy couldn’t see it. “Calm down, son. Tell me. What’s going on?”

“He’s pregnant,” Yancy murmured. 

Herc closed his eyes and takes a few deep breaths, not sure he was ready to even start contemplating what that meant. “Pregnant. How do you even know? How far along is he? Who’s the... is it...”

“Yeah, it’s yours.”

“Are you sure?”

“Fuck only knows how many dicks my little brother’s had in him at this point. If it were that easy to for us to get pregnant, I’d have, like, a dozen nephews by now.”

Herc frowned, more at the cavalier attitude than the words themselves. Even for an incubus, it sounded too flippant. “But...”

“Goddammit Herc, Raleigh adores you and he can't get pregnant off me, so yes, it’s yours. But if you don’t want him, I’m not going to pressure you into...”

“Oi, I’m not Richard!” Herc snapped without thinking, but stopped himself before he could lose his temper entirely. Yancy was probably a mess; Herc knew he would be, if something so huge had happened to Scott. “I’ll be there as soon as I can, okay?”

Yancy had already hung up, though.

Goddamn that boy.

Chuck’s quiet on the drive, his cocky little smile flattened out in sleep. Herc holds him as the car twists and turns through Anchorage, thinking. Even like this, Herc can feel his son’s worries about their relationship, how this will change things. In truth, he doesn’t know himself. 

That damn book - not to mention Yancy and Raleigh’s experience with their own father - makes it clear how important a young incubus’ human parent is. And Herc wasn’t there much for Chuck as a little sprog, always deployed, off fighting other men’s wars while his baby grew up alone. He’s determined he’s not going to make the same mistakes - his or Richard’s - this time around. 

But he can’t let it take Chuck away from him. He won’t. 

And Chuck’s terrified that his daddy’s going to leave him behind.

His boys. Ridiculous, adorable creatures, all three of them. They don’t understand what Herc does about all this. Since the mating bond formed, things have been so clear; his role in things, what they are to him and what he is to them. His _job_. It might not be some kind of cosmic fate, but who cares? The Beckets made themselves a little brother, the day Raleigh bit Chuck in the locker room showers. 

Made themselves a little brother, and found themselves a daddy. A real one.

Cause that’s what Herc’s finally learned about himself. He’s not a soldier or a rock star or a hero or a husband or any of the other things people, throughout his life, have tried to tell him he is. He’s a father, and a good father takes care of his boys, and that, that is exactly what he's meant to do with his life.

Herc just wishes he knew what happened with Richard.

Then maybe he could figure out a way to reach Yancy. Bring him home.

Because now, with all this? Gipsy gone, Raleigh pregnant, the boys are going to need somewhere to land.

+++++

When they get to the ‘Dome, Herc doesn’t even bother stopping off at the VOQ to drop their bags off. Chuck’s just as anxious to see Raleigh as Herc is, and doesn’t complain one whit. Just shoulders his bag and follows his daddy to the clinic.

Where Raleigh’s busy feeding off one of the male med techs. 

The bloke’s on his knees, knelt up over Raleigh on the bed, scrub pants pulled off and cock so deep down Raleigh’s throat that Herc can see the outline of it pushing out against his neck. Raleigh’s hands are curled around the back of his thighs, pulling him closer, encouraging him to thrust. Yancy’s standing next to them both, naked, one hand stroking his little brother’s hair gently, two fingers of the other jammed up the tech’s arse, clearly stroking his prostate. His own cock is bobbing straight and red against the tech’s thigh, but Yancy’s clearly paying it no heed. The tech is moaning, hands braced on the wall, utterly lost in it.

The doctor who showed Herc and Chuck back to their room just stands there in shock, door open, everything exposed. “Oh my god. Rangers, you...”

Chuck leans into the woman, pulling her face around and kissing her gently. “A pretty fantasy, isn’t it?” he purrs. “You should try that with your husband tonight, I think.”

Her eyes glaze up a bit, and she nods mechanically.

“You’re creaming your panties right now,” Chuck murmurs. “Why don’t you go take care of that, and leave us boys to talk?”

She nods again, shuffling off, almost hitting a wall on her way back to wherever it is doctors rub it out in the middle of the day. Yancy looks up long enough to raise an eyebrow at Chuck, who shrugs, and Herc shoves them all in the room.

He grimaces. “Yance? Can you...”

“Yeah, sure,” the elder Becket says. The room is filled with the sensation of _pressing_ \- physical or psychic or maybe both, Herc’s not sure - and the tech comes with a loud, pained cry. Yancy doesn’t even give him time to recover, just lifts him off Raleigh, pulls his pants up, lips to his ear, whispering something, and then the tech’s gone too.

Yancy sits down on the edge of the bed, Raleigh automatically pushing up against him. He’s naked and hard under the hospital sheets, but, in a rare display of self-consciousness, pulls the sheets up around his bare chest as Yancy cuddles him. 

“Sorry, Herc,” he says, a little hoarse. Under the harsh lighting, he looks pale. Yancy too, freckles standing out sharply. “Didn’t mean to. Just been so hungry lately.”

Herc looks at Yancy as he sits down on the other side on the bed, hand on Raleigh’s knee. What's there to be worried about? Herc's not mad at him. He hasn't done anything disobedient or cheeky. But that's Raleigh. Herc's good, sweet boy. “That’s alright. Yancy tells me you’re eating for two right now. Gotta take care of that new little Hansen, eh?”

Raleigh looks up at him, fear in those big blue eyes. It last a second, two, and then the boy bursts into tears.

It takes Herc a few minutes to calm Raleigh down, but just like with Chuck, a warm hug does wonders. Herc pulls his beautiful, golden boy into his arms and rocks him a little. Raleigh babbles an apology, more than one, and Herc just kisses him and tells him it’s alright. He breathes in deep, taking in Raleigh’s sweet scent, changed now, utterly content. 

Yancy moves away, sitting instead in one of the room’s small chairs, tugging a concerned, confused Chuck back into his lap. Makes Herc feel better to know that his oldest son’s taking care of his little brother, and if the thought comes too easily to mind, Herc doesn’t worry about it. Whatever they were before, Raleigh and him are bound together now. And if he and Raleigh are bound, so are he and Yancy. 

There’s nothing normal about this situation but right now, to Herc, it feels like the most natural thing in the world. 

“Shouldn’t... shouldn’t bring a baby into this world,” Raleigh finally says mournfully, hiccuping but getting words out. “It’s not right, not with... with...”

“Shh, love. Shh. Don’t worry about that.”

“B-But it’s my fault, it’s my fault I’m...”

“It’s not your fault,” Herc gentles, petting his hair. He glances over at Chuck, who’s got that constipated expression on right now, the one that can mean a dozen different things. Boy’s also got his mind locked down hard. Fuck. But he can deal with that later. “Children are never a bad thing. Don’t you dare worry about that.”

“The kaijuu...”

“I’d kill every last one of those fucker myself to keep you boys safe,” Herc tells him, soft and easy, and lays a hand on his belly. “They won't beat us. I won’t let anything happen to our family.”

Raleigh starts crying again, but this time they’re happy tears. He wipes his face but the moisture just keeps coming, apologizing all the while - _it’s hormones, just the hormones, sorry, no love, you cry all you want to_ \- and Herc loses himself a little in how precious, how perfect, it all is.

“I need to talk to you,” Yancy whispers in Herc’s ear. He’s dressed now. When did that happen?

It’s cold water on all that heat, but Herc nods back and gently disentangles himself from the bed. Chuck moves into his place, tucking under the blanket next to Raleigh, little wings stretching just enough to touch his older brother’s shoulder. Raleigh sighs, cuddling in, and Yancy hands Herc his boots.

Funny. Herc’s not even sure when he took them off.


	3. Chapter 3

Herc follows Yancy - reluctant, but he follows. And Yancy, at first, doesn’t appear to be going anywhere. Just meanders through the ‘Dome on slippered feet, down hallways and stairways, until Herc feels a chill coming out from under a door and grabs Yancy back.

“You’re in no condition to go outside, mate.”

Yancy sighs, a sound far older than his years, and gives Herc a _look_.

Herc lets him go.

It’s Alaska, and a military base, and it’s fucking freezing most of the year, so there are little smoke shacks outside almost every door. Yancy shambles to the one nearby their own exit, sinking gratefully onto the bench inside. The plexiglass building smells of old tobacco and BO, but Yancy hardly seems to notice. 

Chuck always goes for comfort when he’s upset. It’s that hedonist streak that’s inherent in their kind. 

“Why not your room?” Herc asks. “The nest is nicer.”

“So Chuck’s made you guys one of those? Those instincts are kicking in hard, aren’t they?” 

“Stop changing the subject. Why are we out here?”

Yancy rubs his face. Boy hasn’t shaven in a couple of days, Herc can see, and he realizes suddenly that Chuck’s never grown facial hair. “The cold air, it’s nice, you know?”

Herc puts his own worries out of his head for a moment, sitting down next to Yancy. He’s still got his jacket on from their arrival and wraps an arm around Yancy’s shoulder. The boy curls into his side, one hand burrowing under the thick, worn canvas. 

“Feels nice,” Herc agrees.

“Richard used to take us ice fishing. Little house, out on the lake. It was cozy. He’d just talk about business and girls and...” and Yancy stops, eyes closed now. “I never liked girls though. Not like Da-Richard did. I’ll feed off ‘em when I need to, but it’s not my preference.”

“Thought you said incubi don’t have preferences.”

“We’re not supposed to. We don’t have orientation or anything like that. I guess I’ve... it’s always been about boys for me. You know, with Raleigh and all.”

Herc rubs his shoulder. “And now he’s gonna be a, umm, what’s the right word?”

“Mom works.” Yancy shrugs. “We’re not like humans. We don’t actually have sex. It’s more about how you see yourself. Not the first time somebody who’s male-presenting got pregnant.” His fingers pull on Herc’s henley. “Must be strange for you, though.”

“We kill giant alien sea monsters for a living, son.”

“It’ll be weirder once he starts showing.” Yancy says it like it’s inevitable. “When his little belly pops and his tits get all...”

“Why you talk about him like that?” Herc asks, suddenly irate. And he’s not sure what it is, why that of all things is what he latches onto, but it still hits him wrong and he can’t not say something.

Yancy’s fingers still. “Like what?”

“Like he’s no better than some camboy.”

“Hey, I love my brother, asshole!” Yancy snaps, pulling away, face indignant. “He’s just about the only thing I do love, so don’t you dare...”

“I don’t need a lecture from you on how to take care of the man who’s carrying my son! He’s mine to take care of, not yours, so don’t you dare tell me how to...”

“This is what I’m worried about, Herc!” Yancy yells - actually yells. The sound is loud in the enclosed space, and it cuts right through the haze descending in Herc’s brain. “This shit!”

Herc takes a deep breath, folding his arms, pacing away. “What shit?”

“You’re all discombobulated right now. Because of everything that’s happened to you.”

“None of this has been bad,” Herc replies firmly. “You gotta stop thinking like this.”

“We fuck with humans. That’s what we do. We play with your minds, even when we don’t mean to or don’t want to.” Yancy hesitates. “We hurt people, Herc.”

“Yancy...”

“How can you love a thing that can’t love you back? Have you thought about it? Really thought about it?”

Herc narrows his eyes. “You better explain that, Yance.”

Yancy’s face twists up in thought, and the words come out in a rush. “You had to mate Chuck to ensure shared monogamy, right? That’s some serious magic, Herc, for something that a human could do for you, easy as breathing. Don’t tell me you didn’t see any physical changes after that.”

“My dongle grew about an inch, but that was about it,” Herc says, and cocks his head. Yancy’s grinning. He smiles back, hoping that’s an invitation to happier things, and reaches out to cup the boy’s cheek. “Would you like to see it?”

“Yeah.” But Yancy’s smile falls again, even as he turns into Herc’s hand, kisses his palm, before tucking it back against Herc’s side. “I don’t want you to lose yourself, destroy you like this.”

“You’re not destroying me,” Herc says, more than a little perplexed. Doesn’t Yancy understand? Doesn’t he _see_? Everything’s good. And everything will be perfect, when he gets them all home and under the same roof. They’re all he wants. “I’m not losing anything.”

“You know why Raleigh got pregnant? Like I said on the phone, it’s not easy for us. We really got to love the human we’re fucking for that to happen.”

“There’s one of those phrases again.”

“What, fuck?” Yancy sags forward, elbows to knees. “What word would you like me to use?”

Herc thinks about the Yancy he knows, from the strip club and Manila and the news feeds. This is not him. “What’s going on, son?”

“How are you missing the point here that my brother is in love with you?”

“No, I caught that part.”

“And?”

“And I think I’m wondering what your father did to you, that you can’t accept that maybe a human made love to your little brother.”

Yancy stands at that, eyes hard, mouth set in a thin line. Anger is bleeding off him in waves. “You should probably go back in, see how he’s doing. He’s going to need to eat.”

“He just ate.”

“But you’re here now. You might not be bonded to him the way you are to Chuck, but he still gave part of himself to you. He needs you. He needs that connection with you.”

Herc just watches him for a moment, and it’s funny; he really can feel the boy’s anxiety, sure as he could feel Chuck’s through the Drift alone. “What’s going on? You’re practically vibrating out of your skin.”

Yancy licks his lower lip, arms tucking in tight to his body. He doesn’t answer for a little while. “Security Council’s out for blood. The PPDC is going to have us face a court martial. I think the Air Force is running it, I don’t know.”

“What?! Yancy...”

“I know, I know. Nothing’s firm yet. I just sat down with the JAG this morning.”

“Don’t they need to even finish testing you for brain injuries yet?”

“I already got a clean bill of health.”

“You piloted Gipsy back to shore alone, and there’s no damage?” Herc asks, incredulous. 

“We’re tough and we heal fast,” Yancy says flatly. “Ever wonder why Chuck doesn’t bruise when you spar? Not every human is as considerate as you are, Herc. And not every incubus is as well-behaved as my brother.”

Herc chews on the inside of his lip, thinking about that. “Does Raleigh know about this?”

“What am I supposed to tell him? That I’m going to prison?”

“Why just you? Why do you have to carry that alone?”

“He’s pregnant,” Yancy says, waving a hand at the smoke-smeared plexiglass above them. “They aren’t going to put a pregnant transman” - and he makes little air quotes with his figners around that word - “in Leavenworth. They can’t. I can burn this organization to the ground with that, and they fucking know it.”

“Wouldn’t be Leavenworth. There’s that jail in Hawaii.”

“Oh, right. That’s where Scott is, right? Maybe that won’t be so bad.”

“Scott’s an arsehole.” Herc sighs. “So you’re taking the fall. Yancy...”

“What else am I supposed to do? I don’t want my nephew born in some prison infirmary, and I sure as fuck don’t want him growing up in the foster care system,” Yancy says quietly. “Can you imagine? My family, one of us, out there alone? He’d end up some street hooker.”

Herc’s chest twists up. “I won’t let that happen.”

“Yeah? Well, neither will I.”

“Shift,” Herc says then, without thinking. Yancy raises an eyebrow. “Shift, son, come home with us to Australia, stay with us. Nobody needs to know. We’ll get a flat or a house in a nice neighborhood, with a garden for the sprog, maybe even a dog or two. Chuck and I can stay out when we’re not on call... it’d be perfect.”

“You want me to go AWOL? I took an oath. We all did.”

Herc hardens. “They’re court-martialing you for winning a battle. You don’t owe them shit.”

But Yancy’s just shaking his head. “I disobeyed a direct order. I’m the right-hand pilot, I made the final call about going after the fishing boat...”

“Why are you so eager to fall on your sword for this?”

His boy stops, the words tumbling off. “I’m not.”

“Have you signed anything?”

“No. I didn’t want to, not until you got here.”

That little admission cuts Herc to the bone, and Yancy’s bizarre behavior finally makes sense. The boy needs to know that his brother’s in good hands, that Raleigh and the baby are going to be taken care of after he’s gone. And the thought of his brave, beautiful boy rotting in jail while the morale vampires on the Security Council applaud themselves over $5000 champagne in Brussels makes him want to hit something. 

“Then let’s find another solution,” Herc says, as even as he can. “Would you let me do that? Help you find another solution?” 

“But Raleigh...”

“...will be better off with you at his side,” Herc finishes for him, and offers Yancy a hand. “Now, how about we go get him out of the clinic and back to your room?”

Yancy smiles a little, and nods as he slides his palm into Herc’s. “Sure. That’d be good.”

It’s encouraging, and Herc pulls him forward, free hand finding its way to the small of Yancy’s back. The boy lets himself be led, which is even more encouraging, but when Herc presses him against the door, trying to kiss him, Yancy lays a finger against his lips. 

“You happy?”

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

“My little brother turned your son into a sex monster.”

Herc chuckles, and strokes Yancy’s hair, and kisses him. That’s when the boy’s abilities are most keen, Herc knows, and puts everything he can into. Letting Yancy feel it flow out of him - his contentment, his pleasure, the sheer joy of finally being comfortable in his own skin, of knowing his son loves him - is easier than trying to explain it.

But in return, he gets flashes of Yancy’s fear, doubts boiling beneath the surface, images of a small flat, barely more than four walls and a rumpled bed in the corner, a teenage boy with blonde hair moaning while somebody above him, on all fours, takes a belt to...

Yancy yanks back, hand over his mouth, backing away. His eyes are wide, but narrow almost instantly, and his mind slams shut as surely as the door does as he literally flees back to the ‘Dome.

Herc doesn’t chase him down. 

Not that he doesn’t want to.

What in the everliving fuck is going on?


	4. Chapter 4

Raleigh is half-awake when Yancy comes back, smelling of smoke and the chill of winter. Chuck’s curled up against him, snoring away, and he yawns as he waves at his brother from under the thin hospital blanket. Yancy seems troubled by something, but just shakes his head when Raleigh pushes out his concern.

“It’s nothing, kiddo,” he murmurs, and kisses Raleigh’s forehead. “Just Herc being around, is all.”

“This guilt shit is dumb, Yancy.”

“You won’t think that, if you ever feel it.”

“You didn’t fuck up,” Raleigh insists and grabs his brother’s hand, drags it down to his belly. “You gave me this.”

Yancy pulls his hand back, eyes sad for a moment, and Raleigh hates this. He hates this shit. Why does his brother have to be such a melodramatic asshole? 

“Why don’t we go back to the room?” Yancy suggests quietly.

“Will they let us?”

“Yeah, I don’t see why not. Come on,” and Yancy deposits a bundle of clothes on his lap. PPDC issue sweats, nice and soft. “With Herc back, you won’t need anyone else.”

Not that he’d ever say it - or let it slip in the drift - but if Raleigh hates anything about his brother, it’s this. This. The way he just lives in the command role, utterly in charge, as if Raleigh’s still fifteen and unable to control himself. Sure, Raleigh enjoys it too, how much his big brother takes care of him, but still. Sometimes he feels like he’s a burden, just an additional duty picked up after Mom died and Daddy left. 

He knows Yancy loves him, but at times, it’s hard to be sure of that. Not that Raleigh doubts. But he can’t always feel.

That’s what’s so wonderful about humans. Their emotions are so clear, so distinct.

And Herc right now...

He’s like a beacon in the darkness, guiding them home.

“I don’t need you telling me what I do or don’t need,” Raleigh snaps. “You don’t know anything about this I don’t.”

Yancy smiles wryly. “I know. You’re not mine to take care of anymore.”

“You think Herc’ll keep me?”

“I think Herc adores you.”

Somewhat mollified, Raleigh hums. At least his misanthrope, human-hater brother hopeful. That’s got to be a good sign. “So we’re going to go back to Australia with him, right?”

“Right now, I’ll settle for our room. Come on. Wake Chuck up. Let’s go.”

+++++

It’s nothing to key himself into the Beckets’ room; somehow, Herc just knows the combo. Knows the combo, like he knows they’ll come back here soon enough. This gives him some time to take his boots off, scope out the space, take it in.

Typical PPDC, this place. All utility, little comfort. Table, small couch, bunk beds, bookcase, bathroom, lockers. The kitchenette is empty, of course, not a single plate or bowl in the one cupboard, the fridge empty. There is a small four-cup coffeemaker on the counter, obviously used but lovingly cleaned, with a small pile of single-serve coffee pouches beside and a single cup from the cafeteria. Herc plugs it in, sniffing one of the packets appreciatively as he tucks it into the filter basket. Coffee’s getting hard to come by. 

It was nice of Yancy to remember. And it’ll be nice to have a pick-up from the jet-lag.

As the coffee brews, Herc inspects the space. It’s neat, as all barracks rooms are inevitably are, but not grudgingly so. The Beckets clearly take pride in keeping their space neat. 

Not sleeping in their bunks probably helps.

His hedonistic little incubi have converted the back corner of their room into a sleeping den. Clever things that they are, they’ve shoved the lockers forward, leaving an entrance through the back of one of them. Herc chuckles as he finds the crack in the door and steps through, into a surprisingly cozy space. The floor is lined with mattresses, blankets and pillows piled high, looking like they’ve been sourced from a dozen different places. They’ve pinned up a couple of rather nice curtains against the bare concrete walls, a handful of small paper lanterns suspended in the corner. And, stepping all the way in, Herc finds a framed photo secured to the locker back.

It’s a blonde woman, tall and willowy, with the same blue eyes and achingly lovely features as the boys who live her. Dominique, Herc thinks, and wonders what happened to her. Yancy keeps insisting that incubi are tough, but it doesn’t make any sense, how she could die from some normal human disease.

Behind him, he hears the door lock click, and he knows they’re all there, before he even steps out.

Yancy’s closing the door behind the three of them, Raleigh in the middle of pulling off the issue sweatshirt he’s wearing, Chuck knelt down, unbuckling his boots. Their eyes all snap to him, though, hands stilling for just a moment.

Oh yes. 

They’ve come to him.

“Quite the nest you boys have made for yourselves,” Herc says. “We’ll have to do something like it in Sydney.”

Raleigh’s face lights up, and he tosses the sweatshirt away, stepping into the room, his hands slipping into Herc’s, wings slipping out. “That mean we’re going home with you, Daddy?”

 _Daddy_. It’s a pleasing sound from a pleasing boy, and Herc squeezes his fingertips. “We have a few details to work out, your brother and me, but of course.” He pulls Raleigh into him, one arm around his waist and the other settling on his belly. The boy’s tail curls around his leg. “I take care of my family.”

Raleigh lays his cheek on Herc’s chest, his curly little horns slightly cold against Herc’s skin. “Been in the hospital a while. I’m hungry,” he murmurs pointedly. 

Herc chuckles and strokes down that strong back, fingers circling the base of Raleigh’s fuzzy little wings. “I know, I know.” He looks up. Chuck is still stripping. Yancy’s still in his own sweats, from the clinic, a blank expression on his face. “Why don’t you go get yourself ready for me, hmm?”

Raleigh nods, a little flushed as he pulls away, smile tempered now, lip bitten between his teeth. “Okay,” he says, and kisses Herc’s shoulder as he slides past, into the nest. 

Chuck kicks off his jeans, sort of hopping over as he shakes his foot free, glaring at Herc. He doesn’t need to say a word, his boy; Herc can feel it clearly through their bond. “You too,” he says, and nods at the lockers.

Which leaves him and Yancy.

And Yancy won’t look him in the eye.

“Son...” Herc begins, stepping closer, lowering his voice.

Yancy holds up a hand. “Don’t, umm, don’t ask him to mate you. It’s strong magic, hell only knows what that might do to the little one.”

The irritation is instantaneous, flooding into his blood. How dare anyone imply that he might hurt one of his family? They’re his, his to protect and keep safe and... 

Yancy’s hand touches Herc’s chest.

It stops, contentment spreading out in him again, and it’s a moment before Herc can slap it away.

“We had a deal, Yancy, about me and my head, remember? Stay out of it.”

Yancy’s throat bobs, and his fingers curl into his palm, one at a time. “Right,” he agrees, and takes a step back. “I, uhh, I haven’t eaten in a while.”

Herc sighs. He hadn’t thought... “I can’t really go three rounds right now.”

“Yeah, I know.” Yancy shrugs, that easy smile coming back. “It’s good. Can’t get four people in there anyway.”

“Don’t go far,” Herc tells him. 

“I’ll be back in a few hours,” Yancy says, flippant... _careless_ , like he’s not going out there to feed off some arsehole who won’t even remember it five minutes after it’s over, and now Herc’s torn between anger and panic. Yancy cocks his head. “Dude, you okay?”

Herc sighs again, and pulls off his henley. “Are you leaving?”

“Yeah. I’m leaving.”

Herc doesn’t bother saying goodbye. Soon enough, Yancy won’t have to go anywhere else, and won’t want to. Boy’s just a little stressed right now, what with everything going on. He’ll come around. He’ll come back. 

Besides, Herc can smell Raleigh.

It’s a very distracting scent.

+++++

So maybe when he first heard the word _pregnant_ , Chuck got a little jealous. Or a lot jealous. He’s enough of an incubus to admit that sure, he likes his daddy’s undivided attention. It’s a bit of a pisser, too, knowing that in about half a year, he’s not going to be an only child anymore.

But at the same time, it’ll be quite nice to have a little brother, somebody to look up to him and love him and be... to be a big brother, like Yancy is.

And if it means he gets more kisses like _this_ from Raleigh, sure, maybe Chuck can find a way to be okay with it.

There was something of a plan to stretch Raleigh a bit and strike some nice pose for Daddy, but that went right out the window the moment they tumbled in here together. Raleigh really does kiss like an angel, filthy and sweet at the same time, his hands gripping tight as he lets Chuck plunder his mouth. He tastes slightly different than what Chuck remembers from Manila, but the sounds he’s making are just as good as before.

Chuck undulates up, relishing the softness of this nest, breaking the kiss just long enough to relish the sensation of skin on skin. Humans are wonderful, and Daddy is everything, but there’s nothing quite like his brothers.

“Are we still brothers?” he pants, the thought hitting him. “Or are you my step-daddy now?”

Raleigh laughs, but Daddy laughs louder, and Chuck sighs happily as warm human hands find his shoulder. He answers it with a caress of his tail. 

“Daddy?”

“There’s only one daddy in this family,” Daddy rumbles, in that way he does when he’s really turned on, and Chuck looks up. Daddy’s still got his khakis on, a delicious sight; Chuck loves it when Daddy fucks him with clothes on. Feels so nice. “And Raleigh, I love you, but that’s not what you want to be, is it now?”

“You’re what I want,” Raleigh says breathlessly. 

Daddy chuckles, and pulls Raleigh up on his knees, so they’re eye to eye. “Are we still hungry, baby?” he asks gently.

“Yes,” Raleigh replies, fingers curling into Daddy’s waistband, the tips of his wings quivering. “Oh yes.”

“Go ahead,” Daddy tells him. “Take what you need.”

Raleigh hums happily, some tune Chuck doesn’t know, unthreading Daddy’s belt with deft fingers. He’s still humming when he unzips Daddy and pulls him out, but it fades into a pleased moan when he gets his hands around all that reddened, engorged flesh.

“Oh, Daddy. You’re bigger.”

“And I want to see you swallow all of it, sweetheart. You’re going to get that all down, aren’t you?”

“Yes, Daddy.”

So okay, Chuck can do this. He can slot up between his big brother’s thighs and slide into his slick cunt and feel his moans as he swallows their daddy down, feel his body move as he bobs up and down on their daddy’s cock. He can taste the echo of Daddy’s orgasm, when it comes, and share the rush of life energy that floods through his big brother’s veins. He can stay still buried inside Raleigh and kiss him some more, and then grin over his shoulder, when Daddy - still lovely hard, thanks to the bonding - asks if anybody’s up for a little old-fashioned double penetration.

Chuck can definitely cuddle up with Raleigh afterward in the nest, warm and safe and sated. He rubs his cheek on Raleigh’s chest, feels Daddy’s fingers stroking his shoulder, and it’s the best feeling he’s had in a long time.

Except Daddy’s thinking about Yancy.

And huh, he isn’t here, is he?


	5. Chapter 5

Herc doesn’t notice waking, just as he didn’t notice falling asleep. It feels like he just shut his eyes for a moment, barely anything at all. Except he must have been dreaming for at least a little while, because he could have sworn Yancy was here with them, and the boy most certainly is nowhere to be seen. Or felt. Unlike the other two.

Chuck is curled up against his back, arm thrown over his waist, Raleigh tucked into the space between his chest and the padded, curtained wall. Both of them are dreaming, he can tell, but of what, he can’t be sure. Chuck’s dreams are always quiet, and Herc’s never seen one of Raleigh’s before, so it’s hard to make out.

It only strikes him as odd when he remembers they haven’t actually bonded yet.

He shouldn’t be able to feel anything.

Very strange.

But as peaceful as the room is at the moment, something in Herc’s chest just won’t settle. Something anxious, beating on his ribs.

And ah, he knows.

Yancy’s not here.

Yancy’s out there, screwing some other bloke, feeding off some other bloke, kissing some other...

Yeah. That’s definitely what it is.

It takes Herc a few minutes to locate his trousers, another minute to dislodge them from where his boy is laying on them - Chuck has a bit of a thing for his dirty clothes, says he likes the scent of his daddy that soaks into the fabric, and while it should be disgusting, it’s rather cute, the way Chuck is clutching the faded khakis like a security blanket. But before he can slither into them, Raleigh yawns and rolls back into him.

“Mm, no Yancy,” he mumbles, grabbing for Herc’s leg, still asleep. “Don’t go ‘gain.”

“Shh, love,” Herc murmurs back, and kisses his forehead, disentangling himself. “Daddy’s getting him.”

“Okay.”

It’s ridiculously cute, but it kind of pisses Herc off too, as he thinks about it, lacing up his boots at the door. The fuck has Yancy been doing? He talks so big about being the older brother, the one Raleigh depends on, and yet...

No matter. 

Yancy will be home with them soon enough. 

And Herc knows exactly where to go to fetch him back. 

The clock on the unused microwave says it’s 0100.

It occurs to Herc, as he slips out into the hall, that perhaps Yancy was right. Perhaps the pheromones and magic and all that are affecting him more than he wants to acknowledge. He shouldn’t be able to see Raleigh’s dreams, feel him like they’re sharing a low-level ghost drift together. He shouldn’t have this need to have all his boys together. They aren’t his, not really, but even thinking that makes Herc sick to his stomach.

Doesn’t matter anymore, what’s right or human or even sensible. Herc doesn’t care.

He needs his boys.

And his boys need him too.

He heads out into the hall, straight for Yancy. 

Herc doesn’t even need that strange low-level ghost drift to know where the boy is.

It takes almost a minute of pounding and at least one hollered threat, but Stacker does eventually open the door to his lodging room. Opens it, dressed in a surprisingly feminine silk kimono, expression falling somewhere between sheepish and pissed off. His hands are still knotting the pink silk tie on the robe. He reeks of sex.

He reeks of Yancy.

Herc has to physically grab the door jamb to keep himself from shoving his commander aside to get to his boy.

Okay. Maybe he should care about those fucking pheromones.

“This better be important, Ranger,” Stacker growls. “What’s the emergency?”

“Don’t _Ranger_ me, Stacks. The fuck is he?” Herc replies, trying to slow his breathing. 

Stacker frowns. “Are you drunk?”

“Jetlagged, maybe, but stop changing the subject. I want to see Yancy.”

“Becket?” Stacker’s face goes hard. “Lad got discharged this afternoon. You might have heard, since you begged your way up here to see him. Last I checked, he and his brother were down in the barracks area.”

“Bullshit. I can smell him on you.”

“Herc,” and Stacker’s voice is hard. “I don’t know what’s going on, and I honestly do not care, but if you think for one second...”

“Hey! Asshole! Some of us were trying to sleep!”

It sounds like Yancy, but it’s too high, too _female_ , and Herc looks over Stacker’s shoulder just in time to see a willowy blond with huge tits standing with her arms crossed in the doorway of the suite’s bedroom. She’s totally nude. So it’s impossible to miss the fact that she’s got a cock the exact same size and shape as Yancy’s, hanging half-hard against her thigh.

He can feel himself go gray.

Herc’s seen Yancy in female form before, but this is the girl from the strip club, he remembers, the one who used to dance better than anyone else there. How could forget her - it was the face Yancy was wearing, the night he and Raleigh gave Herc that unforgettable blowjob in a back room. Now, Herc realizes that Yancy looks painfully similar to that photo nestled in the sleeping nest, just like his mother.

But it’s wrong, it’s wrong, it’s wrong to see Yancy like this. Yancy isn’t a woman, isn’t female, doesn’t have ridiculous porn-star breasts or some smooth, hairless, skinny body. Yancy isn’t all the things he can’t... Herc can’t like... women aren’t... aren’t anything he can find... 

It just doesn't compute. It _doesn't._

“Change back,” he growls.

“Have you gone mad?” Stacker demands, obviously quavering, obviously mortified that Herc is seeing this.

But Yancy, Yancy is pissed. The boy bares his teeth, breasts jiggling a bit as he leans forward, circling closer. “Fuck you, Herc!”

That panic, uncontrollable, keeps rising, like water in an enclosed space. Even as a woman, Yancy is beautiful, Yancy is his, his to take care of and love, but he’s _gay_ , he is, he has to be. “Young man,” Herc says, trying to stay level, “as your father...”

“You are not my fucking father!” Yancy yells. “I’m twenty four, I’ve got my own fucking life, and you have no right to treat me like your goddamn property! I am not your personal whore you can leave in quarters and fuck when you feel like it!”

Yancy’s still in that female form, still yelling, so angry, but Herc still needs to take care of her, make love to her. And oh, it would be so good. Herc can almost touch the memory how good it was with Angela, flashes, like the light in her face and rain, rain when he was... when she... 

He grabs for the door, the wall, anything to hold him up. He can’t breath; feels like his chest is collapsing, his body trying to burn his brain out of his skull, his mind searching for a memory, a memory that should be there, of the woman he once lo- 

“Shit,” he hears Yancy say, and then his boy - fully his boy again - is at his side, holding him up. “Shit, Herc, I’m sorry, I’m here, see, it’s me, my body, it’s okay, you’re okay...”

Herc lets the younger Ranger take his weight as he babbles comfort. Herc’s arms wrap instinctively around his boy, breathing in deep the male musk of his slightly sweaty skin. The thoughts of... it’s gone, all of it, and Herc takes another deep breath, steadying himself again. 

Why was he thinking about Angela? 

She was never what he really wanted. That first night had been so awkward. _You were so afraid you wouldn’t be able to keep it up, weren’t you?_ Of course it had been. How could it have been anything else?

Herc lets go a shaky exhale, and pulls Yancy’s face up. All male. Gorgeous. Perfect. The boy Herc loves, utterly and desperately. The way Yancy’s supposed to be. The way Herc is supposed to be. 

He sighs in relief.

“There you are, boy. Such a pretty boy.”

Yancy’s tongue darts out over his lower lip, smiling just for him, just for a moment, until he looks back over his shoulder. At Stacker. Who’s standing there, watching them like his world has just fallen apart. 

“Marshall,” Yancy begins desperately, hand out. But Stacker just backs up.

“Both of you. Out. Now.” His voice is coldly furious. 

“Marshall, I can explain...”

“Ranger, I could not possibly care less about explanations. But if you are not out of my room in the next thirty seconds, I will have you...”

Stacker doesn’t finish the sentence. There’s a rush of power, like a fast wind around them, and their commander hits the ground. Hard.

Yancy just sighs, and steps forward, kneeling down beside him.

“What are you doing?” Herc asks, still feeling a little shaky, leaned back against the door jamb.

“Would you like to explain to the guy who runs the PPDC, an organization dedicated to killing monsters, that he’s been fucking one since Jaeger Academy?” Yancy snaps as he takes Stacker’s head between his hands, palms glowing slightly. 

Herc wants to punch something. “You’re not a monster, Yancy.”

“Shut up. I need to focus.”

Yancy does his thing - whatever that is, looks a bit like sitting on his arse, but the boy seems to be satisfied with it when he’s done. Herc helps him pick Stacker up and carry him back to the bedroom. There are a couple of toys out that Herc can’t help but look at, and Yancy blushes down to his collarbones.

It’s still there, halfway back to their room.

When Herc works up the courage to ask.

“What’d you do to him?”

“What do you mean, what did I do?” Yancy sounds exhausted. 

“You know what I mean.”

Yancy waves a hand, like he’s trying to brush a fly away. “I don’t know. I was trying to get him to go down willingly. He lets me do it sometimes, but he was fighting me. I had to push my way in. I pushed a little too hard.” Yancy sighs. "I don't like having to do shit like that, so I kind of suck at it."

“Pushing into his head?”

“He’s on the fence about allowing the court martial. He’s pissed about us going after the fishing boat, and the Security Council is breathing down his neck.. He told me, Jazmine, that tonight. Who the fuck knows what he’d do to me if he figured out I wasn’t human?”

The concern is plain enough. “He wouldn’t hand you over to K-Science. He wouldn’t do that. I know him, he’s better than that.”

“Like he’s better than getting fucked up the ass by big-titted dick girls either, right?”

Herc makes a face, trying not to remember that. “Why do you do it?”

“It’s his kink. Nothing wrong with kinks,” Yancy says quietly, and reaches for his hand. “I’m sorry, Herc. Didn’t realize it would give you a panic attack to see me like that.”

Herc just grunts. “Won’t be an issue, I reckon,” he says slowly. “Once we get home.”

“Cause I won’t be doing it anymore.” Yancy’s unreadable. “You think you’re gonna mate me?”

“Seems like the done thing.”

His boy stops, pulling up short in the hallway, just shy of their quarters door. He’s wearing the fluffy hotel robe from Stacker’s room, one of those amenities the damn DVs get, and it’s so big, it makes him look very young.

“Herc...I...” and he shakes his head. “I mean what I said. I’m not your personal whore.”

Herc frowns. “So what, that’s what Chuck and Raleigh are?”

“You love Chuck,” Yancy say earnestly. “And Raleigh... he’s carrying your baby, so of course you love him, at least for now, and I know he loves you, but me...”

“What do you mean, at least for now?” Herc asks, aghast.

Yancy licks his lip again, and heads for the stairs. “ You woke me up from some really good dreams. Can we talk about this in the morning?”

“It is the morning,” Herc says, getting between him and the key pad for the lock. He puts a hand over Yancy’s, holding him still, trying to get a read on what’s going through his mind. “So let’s talk about it.”

“Herc...”

And then it hits him. It’s so fucking obvious. So obvious, Herc almost doesn’t want to give it voice. “Your father didn’t just leave, did he?”

His boy - his beautiful, golden boy - doesn’t say anything. But his eyes go misty, face reddening, and he shakes his head, even as Herc pulls him into a tight, tight hug.

Yancy lets himself be pulled into the room, and sort of crumples onto the sofa when Herc sets him down there with a kiss. Yancy doesn’t move, as Herc nukes himself a cup of coffee in the microwave, and just barely scoots over when Herc sits down next to him. He doesn’t protest, either, when Herc settles them both in together, so Yancy’s shoulders are resting against his own. Herc unties the robe, spreading the soft terrycloth around them both, and one of his boy’s hands slides up under his henley, the other gripping tight at Herc’s waist. 

Herc lets him be. Sips his coffee, and doesn’t push.

He’s almost finished with his coffee, when Yancy finally speaks up.

“I don’t want Raleigh to know about this.”

“He’s asleep, son.”

“Good.” Yancy lays his head on Herc’s chest, pulling his legs up on the sofa. Cuddling in, Herc realizes, and it settles the last of whatever the fuck it was that happened earlier. This is what he does, this is what he’s meant for; one of his boys is hurting right now, but Daddy’s going to make it better. “He doesn’t remember. Lost it all in the change.”

“Was it as rough for him as it was for Chuck?” Herc prompts gently.

“Worse,” Yancy replies, almost too quiet to hear. “All he had was me. But it takes a lot longer to get through, if you’re just feeding off another incubus, so.” He shrugs, a soft movement against Herc’s body. “I didn’t know what else to do. I didn’t want them touching him.”

 _Them._ Herc doesn't even need to hear this story to know that if he ever gets his hands on Richard Becket, he's going to fucking murder him. _Them._. Jesus fucking Christ.

He kisses Yancy, hugging him a little tighter for a moment, hoping it's encouraging. “Maybe you should back up, sweetheart. Start at the beginning.”

Yancy sighs, and his fingers dig in to Herc’s skin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So somebody brought up the gender identity thing in the comments section. Just want to say that I don't intend for this to be linking up to real world issues in any way; they are incubi. Yancy does what he needs to do in order to get sex, and Raleigh gets off on it, but they both still see themselves as male (and brothers). To them, it's not really a big deal.
> 
> Also, Herc's issues with women are mostly a result of Yancy wanting to make extra duper sure that Herc would never even think to try about "picking" at the memories he recreated for him. It's not meant to be sexist. Yancy didn't mean to make it that bad for Herc, but he doesn't have the best command of his powers and he didn't think to anticipate this as an outcome. He's doing his best, but he's got some issues with using his powers and we'll get to why in the next chapter.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaaand.... this is the hard chapter that the content warning tags are for. If that bothers you, please skip!

The machines were loud. Beeps, pumps, soft little exhales of air that somehow filled his ears, blocking everything else out. Looking back, years later, that was all he could remember. The way it sounded. All those artificial noises. The sound of Mom dying.

“Mister Becket? Have you heard anything I just said to you?”

“She’s on the highest dose antibiotics that can be administered to a woman her age, but her body’s not responding. She had a third seizure last night. Her aorta is badly inflamed. You’ve never seen gummas on a patient in a first world country before, and never in this quantity, even when you were in the Congo.” Yancy looked away from where his mother was squeezing his latex-gloved hand. “I heard you.”

The doctor pursed his lips. “We haven’t given up on her. But I have never seen a case like this before.”

Yancy breathed out. Mom’s eyes were closed, her mind lost in fevered dreams, and it was only a very small comfort that she hadn’t started showing signs of dementia yet. “Can I sign her over to hospice, or does Dad have to do it?”

“Like I said, we haven’t given up on her. There are a few more treatment options if...”

“But you can’t fix this.” He stroked Mom’s hair out of her worn, blistered face. Only a few weeks before, she’d been fine. Dad had been on a business trip and had taken Raleigh with him, and so Yancy had spent the week at home, away from his tiny studio apartment. Letting Mom kiss him breathless. Cuddling up with her on the sofa, or in the big bed that Dad never let him share. Shifting just for fun, because nothing was ever quite as good as Mom’s tongue on his girl-tits. A whole week back. Then Mom had collapsed at work, which meant the fuckers called 911, which meant hospitals and CDC mandatory reporting. Which meant she couldn't die in peace in her own bed, like she should have been able to. “She’s not coming home, is she?”

“I’ll get you the hospice information.”

Yancy drove home alone, trying to keep the tears at bay. 

Fucking syphilis.

Fucking humans, and their fucking diseases, and their fucking disgusting habit of fucking each other without adequate protection and ruining everything.

Incubi could only contract certain illness, and only then under certain circumstances; if the human was extremely sick, and the disease was transmittable via sex. The energy absorbed during the orgasm could itself be corrupted in cases like that. An incubus’ symptoms would progress along the same line as the human's could, but there were no pathogens to fight, no bacteria or virus for medical science to kill. Just death-energy that settled in the spirit and ate you away. A strange quirk of their not-so-biological biology

There was magic, of course, and some things, like Hep-C, could be fought that way. Mom had tried that, years ago, when she first contracted the syphilis from some asshole at a nightclub in Singapore, and thought she’d cured herself.

But syphilis was sneaky in humans, and so it was sneaky in them. Mom's magic hadn't worked. The disease had roared back with a vengeance.

So Mom was dying.

Most energy-imprinted illnesses would fade with time. Hurt badly, and then fade. Even AIDS wasn’t fatal. Painful, annoying, weakening, yes. Fatal, never. Usually it was some opportunistic infection that took a human patient’s life, and those were things an incubus couldn’t contract. Syphilis was the worst, and syphilis was so rare amongst humans anymore, Mom hadn’t even thought to worry about it.

Before, Yancy had always thought Mom was just trying to scare him with her stories about syphilis. When he was first-changed, she had sat him down to tell him all the things she’d held back before. It seemed stupid to him, that such a thing could be. But Oscar Wilde had been one of them, and nothing less than syphilis would have caused his meningitis. And of course, the HIV epidemic a few decades back had been quite the problem for his people as well. 

She did teach Yancy had to sniff it out, feel it in the energy, just in case.

But he didn’t want that knowledge, that lesson. 

It didn’t bring Mom back from the edge.

It wasn’t fair.

Wasn’t fair at all. That she was dying. That Dad wouldn’t even come to the hospital but once a day so she could eat. That Yancy wouldn’t even be able to kiss her goodbye - a human patient in her condition wouldn’t necessarily have been contagious, but she could hurt her oldest son just by touching him. Raleigh, the lucky little fucker, was still human. He got to come and sit by her bedside and read to her and hug her every day (except that day; Yancy hadn't wanted him there for the appointment).

Raleigh’d be able to say goodbye. So would Dad.

But not Yancy. 

He never had anything for himself.

Yancy was sitting at a stop light, half a block from his apartment, stewing over the sheer cosmic indignity of it all, when his cell phone buzzed.

_Don't feel good._

Yancy sighed, and shot him a quick reply. _Call Dad._ He felt vaguely bad about ignoring Raleigh’s whining, but he had no desire to fail his upcoming mid-terms. Besides, the kid hadn't texted him in months.

And then the texts started flying in.

_Dad’s not home._

_Dad hasn’t been home in two days._

_Yance I don’t feel good._

_It really hurts and I keep throwing up. Should I call 911?_

_Yancy please Dad’s not here._

_I don’t know what to do._

Yancy threw his phone in the back seat, irritation rippling through him as he cut over into the turn lane, just in time to catch the light. “Goddammit, Rals,” he grumbled under his breath.

He could be home in an hour.

++++

“He was changing?” Herc rumbles, voice soft in the dark room. “Spontaneously?”

Yancy stifles a yawn, nodding against the human’s lean chest. He likes this, being tucked in against Herc, listening to his heart beat, feeling the edge of that strong mind brushing against his own. It’s strange, what Chuck’s magic did to him in the mating, and Yancy can’t quite figure out what it is that’s been changed. 

“Yeah,” he murmurs back. “It’s what happens.”

“How old were you boys?”

“I was, umm, nineteen. Rals was fifteen, almost sixteen. That's kind of late.” Yancy picks at a little thread in the neckline of Herc’s henley. “I was in college. A lot of us don’t bother with real jobs and stuff, but Richard...”

“He wanted you to go to school.”

“Yeah, sure. But I liked it. It was nice.” Yancy hasn’t thought about school in a long time. Didn’t seem like there was any point. First it had been the strip club, then Jaeger Academy, Gipsy... jail now, he supposes. Nobody’s going to hire an ex-con, so he’ll probably have to go back to stripping. Nothing wrong with that, but it’s... it’s been nice, being more than some _thing_ that lives off sex. 

At least there’s plenty of sex in prison, from what he understands.

“What were you studying?”

Yancy shifts a little, lower down on Herc’s chest. Feels real good, being close to him. He smells so comforting, like home. “Psychology. I had it all planned out. Open my own practice, somewhere warm and sunny, like San Francisco. Hire some nice twink as my receptionist, so I wouldn’t even have to mesmerize people to eat anymore.” He sighs, thinking about it. It had been such a nice plan. No family, no worries, just a nice respectable job and lots of pretty boys around. “I suppose San Fran’s not the same anymore.”

“You still could.”

Yancy picks at his belt. School? Now? After all this? Yeah right. “I don’t know.”

“No need to figure it all out now.” Herc’s stroking his shoulder again, through the bathrobe. Feels nice. “So you went home, and Raleigh was going through the change?”

“Yeah. And Richard was nowhere to be found.”

+++++

Raleigh was curled up in Mom and Dad’s bed when Yancy finally got home. Dad hated it when they slept in the same bed as him, and no doubt they’d get in trouble when Dad finally showed up, but Yancy wasn’t about to shoo his little brother out of it. Rals was in bad shape; naked, sweating and shivering at the same time, tears leaking out the corners of his big sweet eyes and into the pillow he had smooshed against him.

Yancy stepped out of his boots and padded barefoot to the edge of the bed.  
   
"I do-don't feel good.  Yance..."  
   
Yancy pulled off his sweater and dropped it on the floor, petting his brother's damp hair gently.   
   
"Shh, kiddo, it's just you becoming what you are."  
   
Raleigh blinked at him.  "Like you and Mom?"  
   
"Yeah.  Just like us."  Yancy chuckled, and stripped his jeans and socks away.  Raleigh's eyes got a little bigger, watching him closely.  Raleigh had always been curious, always a bit jealous, of the things Yancy got to do with their parents.  Mom had only indulged them to a point, letting Yancy teach Raleigh little things, like how to kiss or jerk off, and never cared if they shared a bed.  But some things, like nudity, had been off-limits, and sex had always been strictly off the table.  _An incubus' first time is a very special moment, and it needs to be saved for the change,_ she'd always said.   
   
She'd also always said Dad would be there.  That Dad loved them very much, and it was only right for him to be the first human in both her sons' lives.  
   
"Won't that be nice?  You can wear your pretty little dresses all you want, be a big grown up boy, so adorable everyone will want you.  No more ice cream, but it's definitely worth it."  
   
A ghost of a smile crossed his brother's lips, and then Raleigh started crying again.  Yancy retrieved his phone from his pants pocket, firing off a text to Dad before crawling in next to his little brother.  

Raleigh's flushed body wrapped around his own, tears cool on Yancy's skin, and he just held on while Raleigh exhausted himself.  
   
Dad would be home soon, Yancy thought.  Dad would be able to take care of him.  
   
But Dad didn't come home.  Not that night, not the next morning.  

Yancy skipped class again that day, spreading his books out on the living room table, where Raleigh was burrowed into three quilts and a pile of pillows, playing GTA as a way of taking his mind off the hunger gnawing at him.

He didn’t complain, though, didn’t ask for food or anything like that, and Yancy didn’t offer any. Raleigh was holding out for Dad. Dad had to take them through the change, the only human an incubus could ever really trust, the only love many of their kind would ever really know. Yancy hadn’t found his own changing to be quite the spiritual experience Mom had always promised him it would be - the whole process had been quite mechanical, really, what parts of it he remembered - but Dad had always been more affectionate with Raleigh.

So there was a chance there for Raleigh to get the changing he deserved.

Yancy wasn’t about to take that away from his little brother by fetching over one of the neighbors.

 Still, Raleigh needed to eat. A day or two more at most was all Rals be able to handle.  But Dad wasn't picking up his phone, and there was little Yancy could do to comfort his brother. 

So, when Raleigh had thrown up again - bile, that time - Yancy took the risk of calling the hospital and asking for Mom.  

“Yancy?” She sounded weak, but at least she was lucid, her French accent beautiful even now. “Yancy, what’s wrong? They said there’s something wrong with Raleigh?”

Yancy rubbed Raleigh’s back, holding him close. Raleigh was crying again, a terrible, heart-rending sound. “He's... he's changing, Mom."  
   
"What do you mean?"  
   
“I mean he’s _changing._ ”  
   
Mom didn’t answer for a moment, and when she spoke again, she sounded disappointed. “Yancy, baby, I know this must be exciting for you, but you need to go to class.  This is a bonding time for him and your father, and if he misses that..."  
   
"Dad's not here."  
   
"Have you called him?"  
   
"Like six times.  He knows.  You think..." Yancy chewed his cheek.  "You think something happened to him?"  
   
Mom didn't speak for such along time that Yancy was afraid she might have hung up, but she sounded angry, when she did speak again.  
   
"I'll talk to him.  He'll listen to me."  
   
And sure enough, Dad was home an hour later.  He came and got Raleigh and took him up to the bedroom that he and Mom shared, without so much as a word to Yancy.  Dad seemed concerned, genuinely worried, affectionate even, if the way he kissed Raleigh upon coming into the house was any indication. 

Yancy wasn’t sure whether to be hurt or jealous. But he knew that asking to cuddle in with them while his daddy gave his little brother his first real meal would go over like a lead balloon, so he tried to put it all out of his mind. Worked on homework, down in the kitchen. That room was far enough away from the master bedroom that Yancy couldn’t feel what was going on.

He could hear it, though. And Raleigh sounded so goddamn happy.

And wasn’t that just his luck? 

Fucking little brothers. They always got what they wanted.  
   
Still, Yancy tried to hope.  Dad would be down for food when Raleigh fell asleep, he knew, and maybe, just maybe, Dad would let him have a taste too.

But, no.  
   
"Why aren't you at school?"  
   
It was the first thing Dad said to him when he walked in to raid the fridge, reeking of sex.

Yancy tried not to let the tone of it deflate him too badly.   
   
"Mom's sick, Raleigh's changing."  He shrugged.  "I figured you could use me here."  
   
Dad grunted and just made himself a sandwich. Took it into the living room and turned on CNN, feet up on the coffee table, nudging the boys’ PlayStation controllers out of his way.  
   
When Yancy tried to cuddle up next to him on the couch, Dad just glared at him pointedly and told him to put some clothes on.  
 

+++++

   
"Did you know something was wrong?" Herc asks now, fingers carding through Yancy's hair, gentle and sweet, and something about it makes Yancy want to cry.  “With Richard?”  
   
"No, not really.  He was always a little distant," he admits.  "But Mom always said it was different for humans, that they weren't so touchy-feely as we were and to let him have his space."  Yancy turns his head, cheek on Herc's chest.  "He never cuddled us like this.  Never touched me naked at all."  
   
"His loss," Herc says quietly, a little distant himself.  "What happened after that?"  
   
"I went to my afternoon classes.  It was too hard being in the house, it smelling like...” Yancy swallows.

“Like your daddy,” Herc finishes for him.

“I guess. And there was a TA in my history class I didn't even have to hypnotize to get lunch.  But when I came home that night, Rals was alone again. I don’t know where the fuck Richard went.  I called Mom and said I was moving Raleigh to my place."  
   
"Your place?"  
   
"Yeah, I had my own little apartment downtown.  College housing.  Kind of a crappy complex, but it was cheap enough I could finance it myself on, umm... with my job.” Yancy hesitates at saying it straight out. Not that he’s embarrassed - because he is what he is and he learned a long time ago the futility of trying to hold himself to human sexual mores - but after the little display in Marshall Pentecost’s room, he doesn’t know how Herc will react. That’s all it is. Why would it be anything else? He sure as shit isn't worried about what Herc thinks about him, what Herc wants out of him.  
   
But at least Herc doesn't stop stroking his hair.  "Were you dancing?" he asks quietly, in a voice that says he expects the answer.  
   
And Yancy, to his surprise, gives it. “No, no, no time for that.  But I could usually squeeze in a few nights of escort service every month.  Two or three of those covered everything."  
   
"Ah."  
   
Yancy can't remember the last time he talked about this.  He doesn't like the way he feels right now - he doesn’t like what he can feel from Herc.  "You don't approve."  
   
"I don't like the idea of strange men touching what’s mine.”

Yancy twists, looking up at him, considering. 

It’s not like Herc’s here for him. Herc’s here because of Raleigh, because of Raleigh’s baby, because Yancy called and asked him to come. And if Herc wants to take him, Yancy Becket, back to Sydney, wants to mate him, well, that’s only because of Raleigh too.

Herc loves his little brother.

Yancy could feel it through the ghost drift, while he was with Stacker tonight. He could almost taste Herc’s love for Raleigh. But right now? With him? No, he doesn’t get love, not at all. All he gets is this pheromone-fueled possessiveness. 

It should be a comfort, knowing he didn’t reconfigure Herc’s sexuality in some way that profited him personally. But it just pisses him off.

It’s not fair.

Raleigh gets everything. Raleigh gets a daddy and kids and another brother and _family_. And what does Yancy get for himself? 

Why does Herc even care about any of this?

 _You’re better than that, stronger than Rals. You don’t need what he does. You can stand on your own two feet. You don’t want some fucking human telling ,_ he tells himself now, watching Herc’s face. “You’re not my daddy,” he says, 

 

+++++

   
Yancy left his address with Dad.  Sent it to his email, his phone, wrote it on the kitchen fridge and left a note on the garage door and told Mom and Mom's doctor.  Dad knew where his apartment was; Dad had helped him move in, after Yancy had gotten himself kicked out of the college dorms for what the RA had written up as "inappropriate sexual behavior."

How was he supposed to know that orgies weren’t par for the course in the honors dorms? That hosting one for his floor was going to result in the campus police getting called? The only people complaining about it were the ones who didn’t come, and they’d been fucking invited.  
   
"Yancy, I know you are... what you are, but let this be a lesson to you about keeping it in your pants around humans," Dad had told him at the time.  "Not everybody appreciates having some stranger's junk shoved in their face."  
   
"Yes, sir," he'd said, and that had been that.  
   
Dad hadn't been to his apartment since.  
   
Raleigh had never been allowed over.  
   
Even in his half-gone, change-induced heat, Raleigh had perked up at the sight of Yancy's little four hundred square foot apartment, the bed at one end and the kitchen counter littered with knitting projects.  The furniture was all second-hand, the carpet stained by the previous tenant, but the bed was comfy and there were lots of family photos up around the room.   
   
"Is Daddy here?" Raleigh asked eagerly.  
   
"No baby," Yancy sighed and set Raleigh down on the bed. He’d left the mattress on the floor, bolstering up the sides with nice fat pillows, draping the whole thing in the softest blankets he could find. Dad had never let him - or Mom - build a proper nest at home, said it was weird. It was the first thing Yancy had done for himself when he moved in. Even with wartime shortages starting up, he added to it when he could.  "Daddy's not here yet, but he's coming.  And I'm here, aren't I?"  
   
"I love you, big brother," Raleigh babbled happily, as he fussed with his clothes.  
   
Irritated as he was with the situation - he did have school work he needed to do, a couple of huge tests next week he needed to study for - Yancy couldn’t help but smile. 

It was the first time he'd heard Raleigh say that in a long, long time.

He and his brother had been close as children, but after Yancy had gone through the change, they’d started drifting apart. Dad was always playing favorites, taking his human son out on fishing trips and weekend hikes and coffee on the way to school, proper family activities, shit he never let Yancy join in on. Hell, Dad always came home with dinner for himself and Rals, and the two of them ate together in the kitchen or out on the porch, if the weather was good, laughing.

It was the laughter that hurt the worst.

Because what did Yancy have? A mother who barely taught him how to use his powers, and certainly wouldn’t let him practice on Dad, like he was supposed to be able to. An ever-rotating series of boyfriends and girlfriends that were utilitarian at best. A high school that had labeled him a manwhore pretty much in the first week he started going there. Teachers that were shocked he was actually intelligent and a guidance counselor who tried to talk to him out of his “destructive” sexual behavior. A little brother who started ninth grade when Yancy was in his senior year and hated being painted with the same brush and got nasty about it. A father who hadn’t so much as hugged him in years.

Yeah, well, Raleigh was in the same boat now. The same boat, in the same sea of human judgment, and as awful as it was, Yancy couldn’t help but be a little smug that there would be no more private dinners with Dad. No more shared granola bars out on the trails. 

But then, Dad had always been a Daddy to Raleigh, and Raleigh had always needed a Daddy, so that shit would probably continue even now. Raleigh would just get sex, which Dad had never let Yancy have.

It wasn’t that Dad didn’t like his oldest son because he was an incubus - Mom had always been insistent upon that. Dad didn’t like his oldest son, period.

Dad loved Raleigh. 

And Yancy knew his love couldn't compare with that. At least he could do this much, though. At least he could be useful to the kid.

Yancy sighed, and kissed Raleigh, petted his new little wings. “I know, sweetie.  I love my little brother too."

But even if things weren’t completely fair, even if Dad took Raleigh away again, at least Yancy got to be a big brother again for a little while now. Got to have his family around him for a little while again.  
   
Dad came by after work, late, bitching about the shittiness of the complex and how he didn't want his Lexus getting keyed again.  Yancy knew, from what limited experience he'd gathered on hook-ups in college, that he could have calmed Dad down, just offered a bit of peace and sexual heat, but Mom’s rules were Mom’s rules. So he stood by and said nothing. 

Raleigh latched onto their father, the second he walked through the door, and again, Dad was sweet with him.  
   
Yancy waited down by the complex pool.  
 

+++++

   
"That doesn't sound too bad,” Herc muses. He’s heating himself up another cup of coffee, and Yancy’s alone on the sofa. The cold of the hours after midnight is leaching into his bones, Herc’s warmth gone, and Yancy tries to remind himself that this is what it’ll be like for him again, after Herc takes Raleigh back to Sydney. That he’ll be okay without this.  
   
"It was okay for a day or two.  Dad called in sick, spent some time with Rals, let me hang out in bed with them even... he was real affectionate, you know?  He was never that affectionate before, and it was nice to be able to..."  
   
"To have it?"  
   
"It was just Raleigh.  You remember, all those pheromones?"  
   
"How could I forget?" Herc chuckles, and opens the microwave before it can ding, wake the boys.  
   
"Yeah," Yancy says and hunches up in his bathrobe, glad he can’t see Herc’s face right now.  "It was a good few days for Raleigh.”  
   
"Then what?"  
   
"Mom died."  
 

+++++

   
It happened fast.  
   
Yancy was with her.  
   
One minute, she was telling Yancy stories about growing up in France and the next, she was flatlining, the machines beeping out the sound of her heart stopping.  The nurse didn't try anything, just wrote the time down on the chart dutifully as the doctor read it out.  
   
Dad didn’t answer his phone.  
   
Somebody - Yancy didn't know who - offered to drive him home.

The ride was something Yancy barely registered, but as the nurse pulled into the parking lot, he was able to rouse himself from his grief long enough to recognize Dad’s car in the parking lot. Weird he hadn’t answered the phone, Yancy thought, but thanked the nurse as best he could and hoped for the best as he headed up to his apartment.

Where Dad was pulling on his clothes, a cold, vacant expression on his face. 

Raleigh passed out on the bed, dead to the world, a livid bruise standing out on his cheek.  
 

+++++

   
Yancy stops, the couch dipping next to him. He can barely feel the arm that tucks in around his waist, the kiss on his cheek. He can see it. His apartment, that room, all the details. His crate of CDs and the slightly broken TV on the wall, the purple silk sheets he’d liberated from a client’s house that one time, an empty pizza box in the kitchen, something Richard had ordered the night before Mom died. He can almost touch it, it’s so close.

He can’t remember what either of them said. Not exactly. 

But he does remember what he tried to do.

“What happened, baby?”

Yancy licks his lips and shuffles a little closer to Herc. He can feel concern, grief, anger rising in the air around him, but he ignores it as best he can. “Best I can figure, Mom... Mom had mated Richard at some point, I don’t know when, I don’t know... she never told me anything about it that was bad, but it had to be. She must have had him locked down so hard, he couldn’t do anything but what she wanted, and the more he pulled, the harder she held. I don’t know.”

“What do you mean?”

“He fucking hated me,” Yancy whispers. “He’d hated me from the moment Mom made him fuck me, that first time, during the change. I asked him if he hit Rals and he said he wasn’t some fucking queer like his bitch wife’s spawn were...”

Herc growls. “He hit Raleigh?”

“I think, when Mom died, the bond snapped, all her magic dissipated and he was free. He... I don’t know what Raleigh was doing, but Richard hit him hard enough to knock him out, and he was trying to leave when I got there.” Yancy’s eyes are stinging, and he can feel himself starting to shake. “If I’d been five minutes later...”

“Shh, Yancy. It’s okay. Just tell me what happened.”

“He called me a whore. Said I wasn’t his son, that neither of us were, that we were monsters and he hated having to look at me, knowing what Mom had made him to do me. That he was damned or something for touching his sons and he hated me for it. He said...” The tears are coming now, and there’s shock mixing in the air now. Yancy’s never been more grateful than he is, in this moment, for Herc’s arms around him, and he buries his face in the human’s shoulder. “He said Mom raped him, made him do all these things and it was rape, that I’d... I’d raped him, that I was...”

“Oh Yancy, baby.”

“I told him,” and Yancy wipes his outside cheek, trying to remember exactly what he said, where he’d fucked up. “I told him I loved him, and he hadn’t done anything wrong. I just wanted to help. I could do that. I could show him, I knew I could show him, and I tried...”

“Tried what?”

“Magic,” Yancy whispers. “I tried to take it away, make it good again, make him stay, make him love us again, but I couldn’t.” The last thing in the world Yancy wants to remember is how scared he was in that moment, how he had had no idea what he was doing but lashed out instinctively. How Richard had broken right through it, rage in his eyes. “He started hitting me. He just kept hitting me, calling me a slut. And I guess I blacked out at some point. I don’t know. It’s kind of fuzzy. That whole day's fuzzy.”

Herc’s quiet for a moment. A long, long moment. His thoughts are distant, and not about sex at all, so Yancy can’t hardly touch them, and it’s almost a relief, to be alone with this.

“You said there were others?”

Yancy sighs, because he knows how Herc will take this. But he’s gone this far into the story. Might as well finish it out. “When I came to, he was there with some guy I didn’t recognize, handing over this fat little stack of bills. I asked him, Dad, what’s going on, and he said if his boys were going to be whores, he might as well make some money off it.”

“Holy fuck! Yancy...”

Yancy slaps a hand over Herc’s mouth, suddenly mindful of the fact that his little brother - his little brother, who doesn’t remember any of this and shouldn’t have to - is sleeping not ten feet away. “I know, Herc, please. Please be quiet.”

The human’s face is flushed red with fury, and while it’s nice to know he’s that upset on Raleigh’s behalf, this was years ago. Anger’s pointless now. “He whored you boys out? And you just took it?”

That stings, and Yancy pulls back, eyes flat.

“Hey!” he snaps, low, defensive. “Richard took my keys, my car, all my shoes, my jackets, and this was October, you know? It was already pretty cold, and Raleigh was still in the middle of the change, and where the hell was I gonna take him? Huh? Tell me that.”

“Yancy, I didn’t mean it like that.”

“It was free food, and I figured, Raleigh can feed off me after I feed off this guy. It’s not... it isn’t what it would be for some human kid,” he insists, hoping Herc will understand. “It was okay.”

“Yancy...”

“Richard just kept bringin’ ‘em by, and the first couple, I had to kind of deal with to keep them away from Rals, and then I realized it was good practice for my abilities, and once I got good at that, I rolled a couple of them for cash, made a few others forget I took their debit cards, which was good...”

“Jesus.” Yancy doesn’t dare look at Herc’s face, not while the man is _judging_ him like this. “How long did this go on for?”

“Days? Weeks? I don’t know. Maybe two weeks. Too long, but it got Raleigh mostly through, before Dad stopped coming by.”

“He just stopped?”

“Yeah,” Yancy says softly, and closes his eyes, wondering if he should tell Herc the rest. 

How just because Richard stopped showing his face, the johns kept coming by. More sporadic, but coming still. An undifferentiated mass of dull gray orgasms, tinged here and there with the rotten flavor of sadism. Yancy didn't focus on any of it, just choked it down and didn't think about it.

How they were finally saved from that. Woke up one morning to pounding on the door, his landlord outside, serving an eviction notice. Illegal activity. Prostitution. Complex security had already put a stop to it. 

_Legally you’re allowed thirty days, but I doubt your pimp’s going to want the attention from the cops._

How he’d taken it without argument, without a single word. The landlord, previously a lady he’d been on good terms with, gave him until the end of the day.

That was something.

And Yancy had had a lot of down time to plan this out.

Richard had taken his laptop and cell as well - his school books, Yancy found burned in the bathtub - so Yancy had to borrow a neighbor’s phone to do some quick research. He might have been desperate, but he wasn’t without his standards, and it was easy to find the best gentleman’s club in Anchorage. Half a mile from the old Air Force base, the one where the PPDC was going in.

Yancy had pulled on his sluttiest female body, dressed it in clothes liberated from the back room of the club only a few moments before, and walked straight in to the manager’s office. He’d had to audition on the pole and on his knees, but he’d gotten the job.

And it was nice to feel full for once. Ten or eleven days of nursing his little brother had left him drained.

He hit a couple of ATMs on the bus ride back. PINs were hard to pull, but after a few days of trying, Yancy had gotten rather good at it. Normally, he’d at least have worried a little about stealing, but there were a few of those johns he wouldn’t have felt guilty castrating. It was only later Yancy had found out that Richard had put some ads up on shit like Craigslist and that black Internet you hear about sometimes. 

Part of him wanted to hate Richard for it. Another whispered that it was his fault. If he hadn’t confronted the man, if Yancy had ben five minutes later, Richard would have just left. It was his fault, pushing Richard over the edge with his ham-fisted attempt at mind control.

He was such an idiot.

But he was going to fix it. He had his little brother back, and that had to count for something.

He also had almost three thousand dollars in liberated cash on him.

Which was good. Richard had shut down both Raleigh’s savings account and all of Yancy’s banking.

It was more than enough to buy them some fresh winter kit at the closest REI, and put a down payment on an apartment near the club. It wouldn’t be ready for a few weeks, but they could do a hotel for a little while. A nice one, with room service and fluffy pillows. 

Yancy owed Raleigh that much. For fucking up and driving Richard away, for making Richard hurt them, because Yancy didn’t know what he was doing. Because Yancy wasn’t good enough.

Well, he could keep Raleigh safe now.

That much, he could do. 

Raleigh was awake when he got back. “Where’s Daddy?” he asked, sounding mostly like himself again. Like the skinny, slightly geeky fifteen-year-old boy who liked swing music and knitted his own sweaters for fun.

Yancy was just glad the bruising he’d sustained over the last few weeks - and the cuts, and from one memorable asshole, the acid burns - had already healed. 

“He’s gone. Mom’s dead and Richard’s gone. But don’t worry, kiddo. You and me, we’re going to be okay.”

No, Yancy doesn’t know how to say any of that, so he doesn’t. Just lays there, cuddled into Herc’s arms, soaking up the warmth of a man who might not be his daddy, but is at least willing to do this much for him. For whatever reason.

It’s nice to be taken care of.

But Herc’s not his daddy. And the last thing Yancy wants to do is get used to this. Not after the discussion he and Stacker had about _those damn Becket brothers_ earlier in the evening. 

“Can you get up?” Yancy asks, patting Herc’s chest, trying to get him to move. “I’d like to go to sleep.”

“You’re going to sleep here? On the sofa?”

“It’s too tight in the nest for four people,” Yancy says, and feels like he might start crying again if Herc doesn’t leave him alone, right the hell now. “This is fine.”

“You might as well take it, mate,” Herc tells him, and waves a hand backwards. His eyes are rimmed red, face an odd shade of gray. He scrubs at his stubble. “Reckon I’m wide awake. No chance I can sleep right now. Might go to the gym.”

Of course. Yancy’s heart falls. It was for a little while, while it lasted. “Of course,” Yancy mumbles, and pulls himself up on unsteady feet.

“Yancy,” Herc says, reaching for him, but Yancy brushes the hand off and stumbles back towards bed. Maybe it’ll be nice, curl up with Raleigh and Chuck, get lost in some happier dream, enjoy his brother for a little while more...

Except that’s not what happens.

Except for the fact that Raleigh and Chuck are both wide awake when Yancy steps through the metal door into their makeshift room, Chuck sitting up with his back against the wall, Raleigh’s head resting on his lap, eyes screwed shut and tears streaking down his cheeks.

Chuck glares up at Yancy, tail curling protectively over Raleigh’s shoulder, and Yancy doesn’t know what the hell to do.


	7. Chapter 7

Raleigh feels, more than sees, Yancy step foot in their bed.

And it takes him a little while to wipe his eyes and look up, look his brother in the face.

After that.

Yancy obviously isn’t affected in the same way, but Raleigh’s always been able to feel his brother’s emotions. Even before they started drifting, it’s been like that. Yancy’s emotions are like lights in the darkness. Normally they’re soft, quiet, comforting little things that Raleigh can reach for during the times when Yancy doesn’t want to talk or doesn’t know what to say. Anger is particularly bright, and that thing that is more like an absence is probably guilt - Raleigh’s still not sure what that feels like, so it’s hard to identify.

But this? Tonight?

It woke Raleigh up out of a dead sleep, what Yancy was putting out when he and Herc came back. Hot and loud as a forest fire, burning clean through his dreams.

His jerking awake had woken Chuck up too, and Raleigh had tried to apologize, but his new little brother just put a finger over his mouth and shook his head.

Herc and Yancy were talking, that firelight of emotion still bleeding out of Yancy, and as bad as Raleigh felt about eavesdropping, it wasn’t like Yancy was going to talk to _him_ about it.

Yancy never tells him anything.

And he’d never felt Yancy this upset before.

It’s still there, the emotion, Yancy still standing there, and Raleigh doesn’t know what to do.

Not after what he just heard.

All that raw sadness... it’s overwhelming.

And the fucked up thing is, Raleigh wants to be pissed about it - Yancy never told him, Yancy never said anything about what happened to Dad, or Mom for that matter. Had just let him... assume.

Raleigh was still lucid when she fell ill, but she seemed okay at the hospital for that first week or so. They wouldn’t let her leave, something about syphilis and infection rates and medical oddities, but she had been in good spirits every time Raleigh had visited. Even got up most days and shuffled down to the cafeteria with him to make sure he got some dinner in him.

“Did your father drive you?” she’d coughed on Raleigh's last visit.

Raleigh still remembers scowling around his sandwich. “Yeah. He had a work thing though, said he’d be by later to pick me up.”

“Ah. That’s good. It’s good you two are close.” She’d smiled, a wane thing - Raleigh can still remember how weak it was. 

“For the change, right?” Raleigh had asked sarcastically.

“Of course, _mon coeur_. Such a special time for a father and his son." She sounded wistful - so damn wistful. "Aren’t you looking forward to it?”

“I don’t know.”

“What do you mean, I don’t know? It’s what you are, Raleigh. It’s your birthright.”

Raleigh had rolled his eyes. “Maybe.”

Mom had patted his hand. “Everything changes. Everything is so much better. Maybe you can even patch things up with your brother, eh?”

He poked at his chips. “Patch up? Patch up what?” Raleigh grumbled. “Yancy’s the one who left me.”

“Honey...”

“He took off the second he graduated, and he lives downtown and has his own apartment and everything, and now he won’t even let me come over! He even took the X-Box!” Mom looked distressed, and Raleigh slumped down in his chair. “He’s probably just fucking people all the time.”

“Language, young man,” Mom had snapped, and then coughed into her hospital robe sleeve. 

Raleigh tried not to look at the blood stain that was there when she pulled away. Her beautiful face was dotted with livid red splotches, like open wounds but somehow worse, and it hurt him, to see her like that. “Come on, Mom. It’s what he does.”

“It’s what we do,” she told him, firmer, sounding more like her usual self.

“It’s what he does,” Raleigh replied. “You’ve got Dad and you guys are good, right? But Yancy...”

Mom was glaring at him, and Raleigh just stopped, not wanting to stress his mother more, not when she was so sick. 

But wasn’t it obvious? Mom was a succubus, but nobody thought she was a whore. She had a real job working for a real non-profit, keeping the books for that women’s shelter downtown, whereas Yancy had just gone off to college so he could keep doing what he’d done in high school, which was sleep his way through the entire student body. Without a goddamn thought about how much that screwed up Raleigh’s life.

God, it had been so embarrassing, being a freshman while Yancy was a senior. Everybody knew whose little brother he was, and Raleigh had gotten more than one lecture from a teacher about not repeating his brother’s shameful behavior, even as his brother just kept doing it. The older students treated Raleigh like shit, or came onto him, or acted like he owed them a blowjob before track practice too, and Raleigh was not okay with any of that. That year, with Yancy at college finally, things had been better, but not by much.

And it sucked, too, because Raleigh knew at some point he was going to change, that he was going to need the same thing. But fuck Yancy. Raleigh didn’t have to do it that way. He could just get himself a nice boyfriend and only feed off that person, just like Mom did with Dad, and everything would be fine.

He wasn’t going to be like his fuck-up older brother.

He wasn’t going to be the asshole son who took off on his family first chance he got and never came to anything, not camping or fishing or even to Sunday dinner or anything. He wasn’t some about-to-be incubus; he was human, and maybe he liked wearing dresses every once in a while, but he never did it in front of Dad. Never defied Dad, never disappointed Dad like Yancy did.

No. Raleigh wasn’t going to be like Yancy at all.

And he didn’t miss his brother one tiny bit.

“Yancy loves you, _bébé_ ,” Mom said, eyes sad. “You two used to be such good friends.”

“Yeah and then he changed and now all he cares about is sex.”

“Oh, my son. You’ll go through the change someday, and then you’re going to need him, more than ever.”

“I don’t need him,” Raleigh told her defiantly. “I’m not ever going to change. I’m gonna stay human and Yancy can go work as a street hooker for all I care, just like Dad says he will. At least it’d be...”

 _Honest_ , Raleigh meant to say.

But Mom slapped him.

Hard.

It was the first - and last - time she ever struck him. 

And then promptly descended into a fit of coughing so bad Raleigh had to get an orderly to help him take her back to her room.

Yancy had finally shown up around six that evening, looking like hell warmed over and smelling terrible. He obviously hadn’t showered since his last meal, and his disheveled appearance was a far cry from the well-dressed, well-groomed player Raleigh remembered from the year before. Raleigh had met him outside the room, not wanting to upset their mother any more. It was the first time Raleigh had seen him since June, and it was almost October.

“Where the fuck have you been? A bath house?”

“It’s good to see you too, Rals.”

“Don’t call me that,” Raleigh snapped.

Yancy had just looked away, peeking through the window in the door. “How is she?”

“She’s really fucking sick,” he said. 

"No shit." 

"What do you care? It's not like you've been around!"

Yancy sighed. “Can you give me a minute alone with her, kiddo?”

“Don’t call me that either.”

But Raleigh had eventually stepped aside. And Yancy had taken more than a minute. He took a full fifteen, actually, sitting in the chair by the side of Mom’s bed, and despite the fact it was Yancy who’d told Raleigh how important physical contact was for people like them, he didn’t so much as try to touch Mom’s hand once.

Raleigh had been so furious with him. So angry. Yancy was Mom’s favorite. She used to defend Yancy to Dad, all the time, nasty fights that ended behind closed doors, back when Yancy was in high school and still living with them. And how had Yancy paid her back? What had he ever done for her, other than break her heart? She tried to hide it, but Raleigh had caught her crying over Yancy’s framed senior picture more than once.  
   
Raleigh remembers that quite clearly.

And he remembers the next day, after Dad drove him home and said he’d be at the office late that night and left him, and Raleigh got sick at school. How he’d thrown up in the bathroom after lunch and realized, as the nurse checked his temperature, what was going on.

Raleigh remembers being so, so scared. 

He hadn’t called Mom. Anymore, he can’t remember why. Now, he would give anything to have heard her voice one more time, tell her he was sorry for the way he’d acted, hear her say _je t’aime, mon cheri_ like she always did. Instead, he’d curled up with half a tub of Cherry Garcia and eaten it slow, over the protestations of his stomach. It was the last time he’d get to eat ice cream, Raleigh remembers thinking - he remembers crying.

And the next memory that makes any sense is of Yancy setting him down on the edge of a very soft, very plush, very _hotel_ bed, fingers gentle as he pulled a jacket Raleigh had never owned before off of him, telling him _I know you’re cold, so get naked, honey, and I’ll draw us a bath, okay?_

Looking back, Raleigh supposes it should have been strange. Yancy had never spoken to him like that before, and certainly hadn’t helped to undress him since they were very small boys.  
   
 “Where’s Daddy?” Raleigh had called unsteadily, the word slipping out naturally, like he’d always called their father that, and he frowned at himself. “Where’s Mom?”

“Mom died, Rals,” Yancy replied from the bathroom and emerged again, nothing but a towel wrapped around his waist. He was also wearing his horns, his wings, his tail. Raleigh had never seen him like that before, only seen Mom’s wings once. Yancy was gorgeous like that. Raleigh couldn’t stop looking. “And Richard’s gone.”

“What, you’re too good to call him Daddy?”

“Did you hear me? He _left_ us.” Yancy held out his arms for Raleigh, and in that moment, Raleigh realized there was nothing he wanted more in the world than to be held. “But I’ve still got you, kiddo, okay? It’s gonna be a little harder without him, but we’re going to be okay. I’m going to make sure you’re okay.” 

“And Mom’s gone?”

“Yeah. Baby, I’m so sorry. She died.”  
   
 Raleigh had cried it out in the tub, curled against his brother’s naked body, his brother’s wings wrapped around him for the first time.

It was the day Raleigh became an incubus.

And he hasn’t even thought to ask, never wondered, what the loss of their parents had taken out of Yancy.

Raleigh had always looked back on those few days before the change as human bullshit, just him not understanding what an amazing life lay ahead for him. He supposes he should feel bad about it, and right now, he does. He’s never said anything about his behavior back then, before Mom died; he’d kind of hoped Yancy had forgotten about it. And hell, maybe Yancy has.

What Dad did... it sounds so much worse.

He lays there on his side, unsure of what the hell to say to his older brother about this, and before anything can come to him, Chuck pipes up. 

“Your dad really do that to you?”

Raleigh pushes up, leaning on Chuck, eyes on his brother. Waiting for the answer.

Yancy breathes out, very careful, tongue darting out across his lower lip. He scratches his hair, messy as it is. His emotions are dark, empty. “You guys heard all that?”

Raleigh nods and wipes the tears away from his cheeks.

“Yeah, mate,” Chuck says and cocks his head. “You, uhh, are you...”

“If you ask me if I’m okay, Charlie, I swear to fucking hell below, I will end you.” Yancy’s voice is cold, the tone he uses when he’s ramping up for a fight, and he looks down at Raleigh. “Well?”

“Well what?” Raleigh replies, not a little bit desperate. “What am I supposed to say? Da-Richard left cause he was bonded to Mom and it drove him crazy to lose her. That's what you said! That's what you told me!”

"It did drive him crazy."

"But he hurt you! He hurt both of us! And you let me think... you let me think that he loved me!"

“Dad did love you!” Yancy snaps, and then visibly stops himself. Another deep breath, and he's settling down on the bed, legs folded up under him. He rubs a hand across his face. “Richard loved you. He never loved me. After the change, I wasn't something he could, I don't think. And when I... I failed us, Rals. I failed him.”

“That’s bullshit.” 

And that’s Herc, coming back in, closing the door behind him. He must have left his pants outside, because he’s in nothing but the old henley he arrived in, and Raleigh instinctively reaches for him as he steps into the nest. Herc smiles at him, and pets his head, but it’s Yancy he sits down next to, Yancy he wraps an arm around. 

Yancy looks up at him. “You don’t need to...”

“You need to listen to me, Yancy Becket, because I understand how hard it is to deal with an abusive parent. You tell yourself all manner of things to make sense of it, you blame yourself, you take it all on, because you even if you tell yourself don’t love him, there’s part of you that still needs to. You, both of you,” and Herc looks at Raleigh and Raleigh bites his lip, “need to understand that you didn’t do anything wrong.”

“Herc...”

“I don’t care if you think you fucked up with some kind of spell. You know, and I know, whatever you were trying to do failed because he was rejecting you.” Chuck squirms a little against Raleigh and Raleigh lays his head on his little brother’s shoulder. Yancy closes his eyes, turning into Herc’s shoulder. “But whatever happened in the past, it was between him and your mother. He had no right to do what he did.”

“But...”

“You boys didn’t deserve that,” Herc repeats, like it’s the truth itself, and kisses the top of Yancy’s head. “But we’re all far too tired to have a convo about this tonight, I reckon. Why don’t we get you to sleep, eh, love?”

Yancy looks up, an odd expression on his face, and nods slowly. “You want me to take the couch?”

“You are exactly where I want you,” Herc says, hand sliding around to cup Yancy’s cheek.

Raleigh’s more than a little shocked to see tears gum up in his brother’s lashes, as Yancy nods once and falls into Herc’s chest.

Nobody really speaks again, as Herc settles them all in for bed. Somehow, Yancy ends up in that best place, still tucked right into Herc’s chest, head pillowed on Herc’s bicep, messy blond hair scattered across Herc’s freckled skin. Chuck takes the place he had before, cuddled up to their daddy’s back, and that leaves Raleigh his big brother’s side to curl into. He’s a little jealous - he’s the one carrying Herc’s baby, after all. But while selfishness might be part of their people’s emotional make-up, Raleigh’s not stupid enough to try and dislodge his brother. Not right now. Maybe later, they can argue about who gets to sleep closest to their daddy, their real daddy, nut not tonight.

Under the covers, Raleigh lets an arm drape across Yancy’s chest, kissing the crook of his neck in some kind of apology he can’t form with words. His brother’s skin tastes the same as always, that spicy sweetness that’s been the only certain thing in Raleigh’s life since he was fifteen. 

Yancy doesn’t stir.

Asleep already, Raleigh realizes. And when he checks, his brother’s mind is still and calm as the surface of a glacier lake in winter.

Yancy’s wings do slide out though, blanketing Raleigh with extra warmth.

And that’s how Raleigh slips off himself, to dream about Australian sunlight.


	8. Chapter 8

Even with all the emotion of the night before, that rush of exhaustion that always follows, Herc still wakes far too early. 0700, according to the clock on the microwave.

It’s complete bullshit.

But his stomach is growling, and the boys don’t have so much as a pop tart in the room, so Herc reluctantly shuffles out of bed, pulls on a mostly fresh set of clothes from his duffel, and heads to the chow hall.

Despite the international nature of the PPDC, the Alaskans that run chow here have never been very good at putting anything else out but greasy American fare. It’s almost worse than Herc remembers. The eggs have always been packet, but at least there used to be bacon. They do still have pancakes and jam, that sugary stuff that only tastes like strawberry in passing. He gets himself a large stack and a big mug of coffee and takes the whole lot over to one of the tables in the back corner. Herc brought his tablet along, hoping to catch up on a few emails before the emotional roller coaster starts back up again.

Of all the things Herc expected to hear about Richard...

“Herc. Good to see you this morning. How’s the jet-lag?”

Herc doesn’t quite drop his tray of food, but it’s a close call. “Stacker,” he say in surprise, turning to face his old friend, coming up behind him. “What are you doing out amongst the peasants?”

“Save it, you damn Aussie,” Stacker grunts, and nods towards the nearest table. He’s not carrying anything but a large mug of that tasteless American tea and a bowl of hot porridge. “Shall we?”

 _I saw you starkers last night,_ Herc thinks to himself, but smiles back and nods in agreement.

Stacker doesn’t bring up the night before, though. Herc’s not exactly sure why. Yancy must have wiped the memory of it from his mind, that awkward encounter, and maybe that’s a good thing. 

“So, where’s your co-pilot?” their Marshal asks instead.

“Probably still out with the Beckets. Boys, you know how they are.”

“Of course. They are relatively close in age, I should imagine they would be good friends.”

“They’ve been quite good to Chuck. Took him under their wing, back when he was at the Academy.”

“Yes, I seem to remember something about that. Rumors, you know.” Stacker runs a finger around the lip of his mug. “Have you heard the latest rumors, Herc?”

“About Raleigh?”

“Indeed.”

“I don’t know, Stacks, you know rumors and a military organization...”

“The one about him being pregnant.”

Herc squishes a blob of egg with the tines of his fork. “I don’t think I’ve heard that one.”

“Then how about this one? You’re the man who knocked him up.”

That, that is totally unexpected, and Herc sets his fork down carefully, considering his options. Yancy said the cover story right now is that Raleigh is trans, that he’s been on hormones since puberty and should have been sterile, that this is a million-in-one accident. Herc doubts that Stacker has a problem with that; he’d be a bloody hypocrite if he does. Sure, he’s probably pissed about one of his Rangers lying on a medical form, or whatever he imagines Raleigh did to get to where he is, but other than that...

“And what if I was?”

“Are you?”

“Boy’s eighteen, Stacks. He’s eighteen and he’s got four kills under his belt. I think he can have sex if he’d like,” Herc says evenly, leaning back in his seat. He quite deliberately picks his coffee up. The look on Stacker’s face is adorable. _If only you knew_ , Herc thinks. “I don’t see what the problem is.”

“Don’t try to make this about his age. Chuck’s younger...”

“And Chuck can also have sex if he likes.”

“With who? Yancy?”

Herc doesn’t need to fake the glare. “Let’s not make this about who’s having sex with who, either.”

“Well, apparently two of my Rangers were carrying on a relationship without telling me.”

“We spent a week in Manila together,” Herc says. “That’s it. Unless you feel it appropriate to ask for more detail than that.”

“One time thing?”

“I had assumed.”

“And yet, you’re here.”

“I’m a man who takes his responsibilities, Stacks. You know that. If there’s a little one on the way, he should have his family around.” Herc smiles over the anger building in his chest. The hell does Stacker think he is, questioning him about this? “Besides, it’ll do Chuck good to have a little brother around.”

“Could be a girl,” Stacker grunts, and lets out a long, long sigh. “Do you have any idea how much of a problem this Knifehead thing has become?”

“I can guess.”

“The UN is screaming for blood, Canada and the bloody Yanks are ringing my phone off the hook, and I still can’t secure authorization to build a second Mark-V. In fact, some people are saying this is the beginning of the end of the progam.” Stacker picks at a chip in the table’s laminate top. “It’s a bloody disaster. I’ve got a biologist, smart lad, a little eccentric, out of the Hong Kong ‘Dome who’s advancing a theory. The kaijuu are learning our tactics. They’re figuring us out. According to him, Knifehead indicates a sophisticated intelligence, possibly with some kind of training, rather than the mindless animals we’ve been assuming them to be.”

Herc digests that for a moment. “So what’s the thought here, Stacks?”

“Releasing Geiszler’s report could cause a panic...”

“This isn’t the last kaijuu. There will be others. We won’t be able to hide what’s going on forever.”

“Herc, I need to maintain faith in the program. So far, the public’s been treating it like some kind of gladiatorial big game hunting sport. Like that bloody River Monsters show.”

“What?”

“It’s about fish.” Herc gives his old friend a disbelieving look, and Stacker sighs. “Mako likes the animal shows, alright?” 

“No, I get it. Just didn’t think you were into that reality show bullshit.”

Stacker glares. “The UN is talking about the Wall again. That’s what I’m dealing with.”

Ah. Really? Herc snorts. “That’s a bullshit idea, and everyone knows it.”

“And you know most people would rather hide from the monsters at the door than face them.”

“So you’re going to throw the Beckets to the wolves, pin this disaster on them, rather than tell the public the truth?”

“They did disobey a direct order to hold the line...”

“The line? Fuck, it’s not fucking Gallipoli out there.”

“They’re soldiers.”

“They’re pilots. And blokes like you and me ought to know the difference between the two better than anyone.” Herc drums his fingers on the table. “You’ll not put them in jail for that.”

“I have to give the UN something, Herc,” Stacker say, but even he sounds far from convinced.

Herc has a sudden desire to get up, storm away in high dungeon, but he is famished. Besides, at least one of his boys is going to want to eat, and he has to keep up his energy for all that as well.

“My son is not going to grow up in some bullshit American group home,” Herc warns as he digs into his pancakes. After the eggs, they’re delicious. “And he is not going to be born in some prison hospital.”

Stacker just watches him. “I don’t want that for Raleigh either. Or you,” he says quietly, and pauses. “How long have you known?”

“About Raleigh?”

Stacker nods.

“What difference could that possibly make?”

+++++

Most mornings, Yancy wakes up to the sound of reveille echoing through the halls and the sensation of his brother’s mouth on his cock.

Today, he’s pretty sure he’s slept through the horn. And as for his cock...

Well. That’s not just one mouth that’s down there right now.

Yancy stretches out in the softness of their bed, pushing the rest of the sheets away from his chest, propping himself up on his elbows, smiling down at his little brothers as their tongues slide up and down his hardening length, perfectly in synch.

 _Little brother and fellow jaeger pilot,_ Yancy reminds himself silently and flops back on his back, shuddering a little as one of them takes the head just barely in, sucking hard, the other biting lightly around the top. It’s just a little moment, a single moment in what would surely be a whole series of lovely sensations, but Yancy can’t lose himself to this.

Not right now.

Can’t leave, knowing what this is like.

Jazmine’s conversation with Stacker last night, on the subject of Knifehead, did not leave Yancy brimming with hope. Stacker is angrier than he’s willing to admit, and there’s nowhere to release that rage except towards those things within his immediate sphere of control; his insubordinate Rangers Becket. If anybody can pull this situation out, it’ll be Herc, and won’t that suck? Having to be rescued. But at least Yancy can sign that plea deal he has the ADC working up, save Raleigh and his future nephew. He can still take care of his brother.

But incubi aren’t known for their impulse control, and Yancy’s _missed_ Chuck. Angsting about this is pointless. Yancy pulls the boy off his cock and up for a long, slow kiss, breaking it only at the brush of jealousy he feels through the ghost drift with Raleigh. Chuck’s an eager boy, always has been, and disengages with a displeased grunt, eying Yancy.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing, sweetie,” Yancy lies, and gives Chuck another quick peck on the lips, aware of his brother’s eyes on him. Chuck tastes like Raleigh’s pussy and his dick, and the combination sends shivers up Yancy’s spine. Boys must have already had some playtime this morning. The thought of watching Chuck eat Raleigh out is just delicious. _If only I could keep them_. “I haven’t eaten in a while. No orgasm for me right now, but I do like waking up like that.”

Chuck beams, starting to say something, but further conversation is cut off by the sound of the door sliding open. “Daddy!” he says with a grin, and scrambles out of the nest.

Raleigh looks at Yancy, bemused smile on his face, and nods at the door. “Age before beauty, old man.”

Yancy rolls his eyes. “Brat,” he says fondly, and shoves Raleigh out. “Go get your breakfast.”

He lays there, staring up at the plastered ceiling, trying not to listen to Raleigh calling Herc _Daddy_. He strokes his bare belly idly, willing his erection to go down, wondering what that’d be like to say it again himself. Feel it again. 

But maybe he’s just done it too long on his own now, or maybe he’s spent too many years being as much of a daddy as he could be to Raleigh - he is the one who nursed him, after all - to ever be somebody’s boy again.

 _Again? You were never Richard’s to begin with,_ Yancy thinks.

He’s tried to be proud of that.

He is proud of that.

It’s all he’s got, other than Raleigh.

But Raleigh’s gone now, because when Yancy comes out, Herc’s already got him against the wall, already buried to the hilt inside of him, Raleigh laughing breathlessly, legs wrapped around Herc’s waist and hands bracing himself up against Herc’s shoulders.

Chuck looks over at him, the tips of his wings perking in interest, but Yancy just shakes his head, and closes the door as he goes back to bed.

Of course he can’t sleep. Just lays there and listens to Herc fuck his little brother’s brains out - flesh slapping, Raleigh moaning, Herc grunting - until it’s over. Until the shower starts, and his door opens again.

“Daddy says we should talk,” Raleigh says, somehow managing to sound deliriously fucked out and cranky at the same time. Herc’s cum and his own slick is dribbling down the inside of his thighs, so tempting, and Yancy is only an incubus after all. He nods and gestures his brother in.

“So what would you like to talk about?” Yancy asks as he tugs Raleigh down next to him, laying him out on his belly. 

Raleigh shrugs, spreading his knees and bringing his cute little ass up, tail gone but wings still out. Herc fucked his ass, and it’s a mouthwatering sight. “I don’t know. Last night?”

“What about last night?” Yancy presses one of Raleigh’s cheeks aside, pressing a kiss to his tailbone before sliding his tongue up through the delicious mess Herc’s made of him. Raleigh moans. This isn’t the first time Yancy’s cleaned his little brother up after sex, and it’s another of those things that he’s really going to miss. “What about last night?”

“I don’t know,” comes Raleigh’s reply, half-muffled by the blankets. “All that shit about Dad...”

“He was never our dad,” Yancy growls, and has to take another good lick of Herc’s cum to calm himself down. “He was Mom’s cum factory. That’s all he was.”

“But he... he loved me.”

“Yeah, that’s what I thought too. Once.”

Raleigh looks over his shoulder, inhaling sharply as Yancy plunges his tongue quite deliberately inside. “Yaaaance,” he whines. “Come on, we’re talking here! Stop distracting me!”

“You’re a very distracting boy,” Yancy tells him, and rubs his thigh. “I wish I had an answer about Richard. I don’t know why he did what he did, but who gives a shit about the johns, right? Kept you fed alright.”

Raleigh huffs a small laugh, but his eyes are worried. “I don’t remember it at all. Did you whammy me?”

“No. Come on. We can’t do that to our own kind, and you were definitely our kind by then,” Yancy reassures him, and gathers the last bits of breakfast from his brother’s skin with quick little licks. He sits back up on his haunches, satisfied Raleigh’s clean, and lays a hand in his hair. “You had exactly what you needed during the change, and that was somebody who loved you. I wasn’t human but we got you through. None of the rest of it matters.”

Turning over on his back, Raleigh considers him with careful blue eyes. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

Yancy searches for an answer for a few moments, and ends up just sitting down next to his brother’s hip, eyes on the wall. “I didn’t know what to say. You had good memories of Richard. Figured it’d be better to let you keep them.”

“Yeah, good memories of Dad, bad memories of you. Great trade there.”

He winces. “Rals...”

“What, you don’t matter now?”

“You were human, or close enough to it. I’ve never held that against you.”

“Held it... held it against me?” Raleigh demands, sitting up himself now. “Fuck, Yancy, of course it freaked me out. I was twelve, and my big brother, who was my best friend, my hero, suddenly stopped eating.”

“Yeah, but Mom explained that, didn’t she?”

“It wasn’t just the food! You stopped spending time with me! You weren’t there anymore! You checked out of my life, like I didn’t fucking matter at all, and all you cared about was getting laid in the goddamn school bathrooms!” Raleigh glares at him. “Then after I changed, you were so sweet, like we were kids again together, and I just... I thought...”

“You thought it was over and we didn’t need to talk about it, right?” That was how Yancy had felt about it, at the time. Things had been so strained between them for so long, the mindless, lustful cheer of the change had been wonderful. Yancy had soaked up every second of his little brother’s affection during the change itself and then, over the next few months, nursing him and taking care of him... felt like everything was right again. He hadn’t wanted to look at it, question it, lest it disappear and things go back to the way they were.

Raleigh nods, and runs his hands through his hair, mussing it up. Blond locks stick out in all directions. “I was scared of becoming like you.”

Yancy can almost hear his heart breaking. This, his brother has never told him this before. “Oh, honey. Why?”

“Cause it was scary,” Raleigh says quietly, and slides into his lap, burrowing into his chest. “You remember when you changed? Couple weeks after Christmas?”

“Oh yeah,” Yancy replies, thinking back. He can just remember that; he’d been shaky all that previous week, falling out at hockey practice, barely able to focus in class. He can also remember thinking about sex a lot, which doesn’t seem so weird now, but was weird back then. Thinking about Richard. Burning for him - and that, now, is embarrassing. “I collapsed at dinner, right?”

“You projectile vomited across the room and then passed out, into your chili.” Raleigh’s voice is still low, and he burrows closer into Yancy’s arms. “It was like The Exorcist. Scared the shit of me. Then Dad tried to call 911, but Mom wouldn’t let him. He took you to bed and Mom, umm, Mom told me you were going to be sick for a few days but you’d be okay, told me not to worry.” Raleigh grimaces. “I think she smoothed it out with me, cause I was convinced you were going to die or something.”

“Like, Mom whammied you?” Yancy wiggles his fingers, trying to lighten the mood a little.

Raleigh nods. “I stayed at Rickie’s house, you know, my friend down the street, until Mom said you weren’t sick any more. I came back and you had your own room. You remember that? We used to share a room, but you said you didn’t want to sleep with me anymore.”

Yancy sighs. The change for him wasn’t too bad, not with Mom there too. He doesn’t like remembering it; hazy as his memories are, they’re all are overlaid with love for Richard, that overwhelming need for his daddy. It only took three, maybe four days, nice and easy and really quite pleasant. 

Until it was over.

“Richard said I shouldn’t,” Yancy admits. “Said you I wouldn’t be able to control myself.”

“What do you mean?”

“He thought I’d hurt you.”

Raleigh’s face scrunches up. “But that doesn’t make any sense. We always shared a room. And we never told Mom or Dad that we slept together most nights.”

“Do I need to draw you a picture?” Yancy snaps. “He thought I was going to rape you.”

“What?!”

“And yeah, I knew enough to know my control wasn’t that great, and you were so pretty and I loved you so much...”

“Bullshit.” Raleigh shifts, turning around so they’re facing each other, and Yancy doesn’t know what Raleigh is actually saying bullshit to. “You asked to have your own room. You asked! Dad didn’t do that!”

“Fuck yeah I asked,” Yancy says, fingertips soft on his little brother’s jaw. “Couldn’t do that to you.”

“But I love you. Wouldn’t have mattered if you had,” Raleigh insists, plaintive, almost begging. “I would have loved it.”

“Honey, you were twelve. That’s too young, even for us.” And Yancy something for the first time. “What’d Richard tell you?”

“That you didn’t want to come to anything, that you were too busy fucking everything in sight to spend time with me.” Raleigh brushes his fingers across the spray of freckles on Yancy’s shoulder. “And you did, didn’t you?”

“Rals...”

“I don’t blame you. I’m not mad about it. The change was fucking awesome. I mean, I had the whole fucking strip club to play with, but high school was probably more work, having to negotiate all those stupid teachers and their stupid opinions, and it was fucking bullshit you left me over it, but still. I get it.”

Yancy resists the urge to punch the wall. Is his little brother really this thick? Doesn’t he get it? “Richard told me to go.”

“What?”

“He wanted me gone. It was little stuff at first. _Don’t worry about dinner tonight, Yance, you can’t eat anyway. _Other shit, _I know your mom invited you along on the overnight hiking trip, but I don’t think it’s appropriate for your little brother to see you with me._ That sort of thing. Then you started getting pissy with me and I figured, fuck it.” Raleigh stares at him in confusion, and Yancy sighs. “He pushed me out, Rals.”__

__“Why?”_ _

__“What the fuck difference does it make?” Yancy can’t keep the bitterness out of his voice. “Maybe he hated having to fuck me? Saw me as some kind of monster? I don’t know, maybe he enjoyed having his dick in his son’s barely-legal ass and couldn’t handle it.”_ _

__“But it’s what we are. Not monsters, but...”_ _

__“I know, Rals. But we weren’t important enough to Richard for him to get over his bullshit and accept us for who we are. He hated what I really was so he made you hate me. Then you came into yourself too and he snapped. End of story.”_ _

__Raleigh seems a bit taken aback by Yancy’s calm answer and takes a moment to visibly gather himself. “College started in August, right? But you left in June, like a week after graduation. Where’d you go?”_ _

__Yancy strokes his brother’s shoulder. It’s the first time Raleigh’s ever asked him about this, and he’s not sure what to say. Raleigh was human when all this went down, a human boy who’d had no use for his incubus big brother. He’s entirely different now, the thing he was always intended to be, and Yancy’s never held it against him. “Stayed with friends, mostly.”_ _

__“Three months?”_ _

__“Mostly.” Yancy shrugs. “Come on, you know what we are. There’s always a place to sleep. Always some man who’ll do just about anything to keep that sexy blond boy from the club around another day.”_ _

__Raleigh nods, a little smirk on his lips, and Yancy can’t help but smile back. He knows what Raleigh’s thinking about. They’d played that game together more than once, back in the strip clubs days, where all they had to worry about was each other. “Guess that’s true.”_ _

__“It was a fun summer. But I missed you. And then when I got kicked out of the dorms and had to get my own place...”_ _

__“So that did happen?”_ _

__“College, orgies, you think it would go together, right?” He smiles a little, despite himself. It had been so great, that day he signed the lease on his apartment. It was a crappy little studio, but it had been his. His space, financed with his paycheck from the escort service, and Richard couldn’t do anything about it. At the time, it had felt like spitting in that homophobic prick’s face. “At least I got the X-Box, even if we never played it together again.”_ _

__“Would have been nice. But we still got to make love there, in your apartment, huh?” Raleigh asks wistfully. “Even if I don’t remember it.”_ _

__Yancy raises an eyebrow. That is the last word he would use to describe what went on in his apartment after Richard showed up, all those years ago. “Make love?”_ _

__“That’s what Daddy says.” Raleigh says. It’s defensive, but he’s still blushing. “I mean, umm, Herc. It’s what Herc says.”_ _

__Unsure of how to answer that - because of course Raleigh would find himself a human who _makes love_ instead of _fucks_ \- Yancy just lifts Raleigh’s chin a little higher and kisses him hungrily. Part of him wants to say this is all such a waste, Raleigh getting locked down with a human like this when he’s barely out of his teens. But part of him is jealous._ _

__Really jealous._ _

__Raleigh loves everyone and everyone loves Raleigh._ _

__It’s not fair._ _

__But nothing’s been fair since the first morning Yancy woke up after the change, Mom stroking his hair and telling him how pretty he was now, how big her baby boy’s wings were, how proud she was of him. She’d tugged one. Laughed as he giggled. He’d asked her where Daddy was, and she’d pushed him into the bathroom with a big smile on her face._ _

__Yancy’s happiness that morning had lasted exactly as long as it took to get to the shower door, where Richard was scrubbing his hair. Yancy had slipped in to the big glass enclosure, wanting nothing more than to show Daddy how much his little boy loved him._ _

__Instead, Richard had dodged his kiss, grabbed his hair, forced him to his knees and shoved his cock in his face._ _

___This is what you get, you little slut. Just this. And at least put your horns away. You look ridiculous._ _ _

__A sharp inhale from Raleigh brings Yancy back to the here and now, and he pulls out of the kiss to see moisture on his brother’s cheeks. “Oh, Raleigh,” he murmurs, wiping a beading tear away. “Raleigh, baby.”_ _

__“You lied to me,” Raleigh says in a broken voice, and the tears are really coming now. “You lied and let me think Dad loved me and he never loved me and he t-tried to hurt us...”_ _

__Nothing after that is coherent, so Yancy does the only thing he can; hold the kid close and rock him while he cries it out in his big brother’s shoulder._ _

__He can still taste Herc on his tongue._ _


	9. Chapter 9

“So, Ranger Becket, I know this must be a delicate subject for you, so please don’t take anything I’m going to ask here as anything other than a doctor concerned about her patient.”

“Okay, I, yeah I get that.”

“Okay.” The resident Head of Medicine smiles at him. “So, when did you transition?”

Raleigh feels queasy; he’s not sure if that’s because of this exam or the baby. Normally he has no problem lying to humans. Hell, his entire life is predicated around it. But he’s not feeding off this doctor, and she’s not getting her best sex ever out of it, so it just feels wrong. Plus, back in those fun strip club days, he knew a few trans folks - prostitutes mostly, but also one of the bartenders - and, well. Nice enough people, all of them, but Raleigh never knew quite what to think, and he knows he doesn’t understand it, not well enough to fake it. Daddy had to force him do the research on a potential drug list, just so he’d have something to write down on the forms today.

He doesn’t like having to lie about this. 

Humans are so _weird_ about this sexuality bullshit.

But at least Daddy’s here with him. Herc. And hell, it feels good to be able to say _Daddy_ again, to somebody who actually wants him, who is going to take care of him, whose heart beats warm and bright with love. Not like Richard. Not like that asshole.

Raleigh had cried most of it out in Yancy’s arms earlier, curled into his brother’s warmth like he did the night he found out Mom had died. In bed, instead of the tub. And this is grief too, but not like that; Mom he could mourn, but their father? Raleigh has no idea how to feel about any of this.

But maybe it doesn’t matter. 

Because Daddy had fed him this morning. Fed him, without Raleigh needing to do a goddamn thing to wheedle it out of him. Daddy had made love to him - and wasn’t that an amazing thing to hear whispered in his ear? And when it felt like the tears wouldn’t stop, Daddy finally came in and laid down with them both and held him until everything was okay again.

It’s sort of amazing. He has a daddy again. And his daddy feels like home, in a way that even Yancy doesn’t, a soft glow that’s filling him up and making him feel... well, whole. Complete.

Could be the baby, though. The stupid hormones.

Raleigh doesn’t like feeling this out of control.

What happened to the days when it was just him and Yancy and whoever they felt like having for dinner?

“Raleigh?”

He digs his fingers into the paper cover of the exam table. “Umm...” 

Daddy, sitting in a chair on the opposite side of the exam room, gives him a smile. “I know you’re worried, honey, but she needs to know. You and Yancy talked about this last night, remember?”

Raleigh breathes out a sigh of relief. Right. Of course. That works. “Umm, I uhh, I figured it out when I was twelve, what I, uhh, was. Transitioned around fifteen, sixteen.”

The doctor makes a note on her pad. “And you never had any surgeries, correct?”

“No. I, umm, I guess I transitioned before puberty hit.”

“And you’ve been on hormones since you were twelve?”

“Fifteen,” Raleigh says, and looks at his daddy. “Mom said I couldn’t until I got a little older.”

“So your mother was supportive? Was your father?”

“I’m here so we can talk about my pregnancy, not my family,” Raleigh snaps.

The doctor’s eyes are soft, full of understanding, even though she doesn’t have a goddamn clue. “Remember what I said at the beginning, Ranger? I’m just trying to understand.”

“My father was an asshole, and he left us because of me,” Raleigh tells her, somehow managing to keep the tears at bay - and this is another thing he hates right now, how raw and miserable he feels. Part of him wants to be mad at Yancy, for putting all this shit on him right now, at a time like this, when he’s pregnant. It should be a happy time. There shouldn’t be this weird gnawing emptiness in his gut. Can’t be good for the baby. Definitely isn’t good for _him_. “So no, he wasn’t supportive. Answer your question?”

She glances over at Daddy. “And you’re the father, correct Ranger Hansen?”

He nods. “Near as either of us can figure. Spent that week together in Manila, didn’t we love?” Daddy winks at him, and Raleigh feels some of the nervousness in his belly unwind. 

“You two are stationed in different locations, though. Have you been with any other men, Ranger Becket, since Manila?”

He hesitates. Because hell yeah, who _hasn’t_ he been with? Eight weeks, at one to two meals a day, is a lot of guys. Still. “Nobody that matters.”

“I’m afraid that’s not how it works.”

Raleigh bristles. “I’m not an idiot.”

“Ranger Becket, this is an extremely unusual occurrence. In fact, I can say with some confidence that this is the first spontaneous pregnancy in somebody who’s undergone hormone therapy for GID in North America. In fact, starting that young, young enough to prevent the growth of breast tissue, should have left you sterile.” She taps her pen on her notepad. “I’m also going to go out on a limb here, and please don’t take this the wrong way, but even if I hadn’t reviewed the extensive testing we’ve done on you as part of the Jaeger program, just looking at you, your bone and muscle structure... you are completely indistinguishable from a biological man.”

Raleigh nods, because of-fucking-course. “I am a guy.”

“I know. This is just a very, ah, unique situation. I’m trying to understand... how best to address your needs.”

“I don’t need anything. You’re the one that wanted me to come back for this follow-up,” Raleigh protests, because what is a human doctor going to be able to tell him? He’s got _Azazel’s Guide_ , and he’s got Yancy. What else does he need?

But the doctor, of course, ignores him.

“Let’s go through your meds. My gut is telling me to take you off all hormone supplements for the duration of this, but I want to be sure I’m not missing anything.”

The appointment lasts another agonizing half-hour.

And, of course, Raleigh doesn’t get a spare moment to spend with Daddy when it’s done.

There’s somebody from the local Air Force Area Defense Counsel waiting for them when they leave the clinic.

“Ranger Becket? Major Heller needs to see you right away.”

Just... holy shit. When does this stop? When does he get to go home?

+++++

His irritation lasts only as long as it takes him and Daddy to reach the small briefing room that they’ve let the lawyers set up in temporarily.

Lasts only until he sees his brother sitting there alone, a screaming distress pouring off of him.

Cautiously, Raleigh comes around and slips into a chair next to Yancy, not sure what to say. It’s even odder that Yancy’s hand finds its way to his, squeezing tight.

Raleigh knows his brother loves him, he does, but the last day or so has shown him just how closed off Yancy’s been. It hurts to know that Yancy’s kept so much from him, that Yancy hasn’t trusted him with the truth about their family. Even in the drift, Raleigh never caught so much as a glimpse of it. And it’s infuriating, because as much as Raleigh loves being the center of Yancy’s world, that doesn’t mean he has to be treated like a child, does it? He’s the one who’s going to be a parent soon, a kid of his own on the way. 

He deserved to know. 

He deserved better than what Yancy gave him.

But at the same time, Yancy's been carrying this all on his own. Raleigh knows enough to know that. He's been his big brother's burden since he was fifteen, since their daddy tried to hurt them so badly. Yancy's been his daddy, in every way that matters; nursing him, caring for him, helping him through every first time, teaching him every new trick.

Well, now they have a new daddy, a real daddy, one Yancy made for them, one who's going to be there to take care of him. Yancy doesn't have to be strong anymore. They can be brothers again, just brothers.

It's time Yancy get onboard and accept that.

It's time Yancy gave up some fucking control and learn how good it is to surrender.

Raleigh pulls his hand away. Scoots his chair back on its rollers, close enough so Daddy can touch him again, firmly ignoring the look of hurt on Yancy’s face. “What’s this about?” 

Yancy looks over at Daddy. “Can you give us a minute?”

“Why kick him out?” Raleigh demands. 

“He’s not family.”

“Like fuck he isn’t!”

“Yancy,” Daddy says then, cutting through the building argument, “what’s going on?”

“I thought you said you were going to talk to the Marshall for us,” Yancy replies heatedly, and spins around in his chair, folder in hand. He smacks it against Daddy’s chest. “What did you say to him? It’s all fucked up now!”

“What are you talking about?” Raleigh asks, confused.

“UN needs somebody to pin this Knifehead debacle on. Public opinion, the usual bullshit,” Daddy says as he starts leafing through the folder’s contents. “I haven’t been able to have a full conversation with Stacker yet, but from breakfast this morning, it sounds like it’s an option between a smarter kaijuu or a negligent pair of pilots. And it’s far easier to throw you boys in prison than let the public know what’s going on with the kaijuu.”

“Did you know about this?” Raleigh demands, looking back at his brother.

Yancy’s got his eyes closed. “I didn’t know that. What Herc said.”

“Yance, what’s going on?”

“The Marshall signed the order an hour ago. We’re both facing a court martial.”


	10. Chapter 10

There are some things about his life Chuck would change, if he could. Things like how journos look at him during interviews, like how he’s something to be pitied for doing what he does. How even the ‘Dome commander in Sydney sometimes treats him like a sixteen year old boy, instead of the soldier he is. How it tends to be the real creeps who come onto him, when he’s out trolling for dinner. How fucking thick the Beckets are, and how unfair it is of them to be taking so much of Daddy’s time and energy right now.

How hard is this, anyway? 

They came here to take Raleigh and Yancy, plus the new little sprog, home. They need to just take them home.

It’s not fucking complicated.

But Daddy’s off, taking care of their bullshit, and Chuck feels like his head is stuffed with styrofoam pellets. He’s already gone for a wander trying to clear it, talked to a few people, hit the gym until his muscles were screaming, but he’s still just... ansty. 

Daddy’s upset. Very upset. 

Whatever’s going on with his big brothers, it’s bad.

Chuck’s just leaving the pilots’ gym, hand towel slung over his shoulder, when he catches a whiff of that distinctly spicy-sweet scent that is _Yancy_. And he perks, excited...

But it’s just Marshall Pentecost.

Which Chuck figures out when he runs straight into the man.

“Hey there, boss,” Chuck says, a little breathless, taking a step back.

“Ranger,” the Marshall says, acknowledging him and dismissing him at the same time. And sure, normally when somebody talks to him like that, Chuck hits the fucking roof. But this is Marshall Pentecost, and his arse looks damn good in those workout pants. Sure, Chuck knows what his kinks are - can smell them, right along with Yancy’s cum still plugged up inside the man - and while he can’t shift himself, it is... _interesting_.

It’s the tightly-wound ones that have the most creative kinks, though.

Maybe Daddy can talk him into a threesome. Or an orgy. 

That could be fun.

After the Beckets get through all this fucking existential angst of theirs.

“Sucks about Gipsy,” Chuck says, before the Marshall can move past him. He turns, just in time to see Pentecost’s eyes narrow. “But it’s not Yancy’s fault that Knifehead was a cunning bitch.”

“Sometimes it’s not about fault, Chuck.”

“Then what is it? Goddamn politics?”

“It’s them or the program.” Pentecost’s voice is cold. “And I need strong teams, loyal teams, like you and your father, out there protecting us from our own stupidity.”

Chuck can’t stop the sneer. “Yeah, humans are pretty stupid,” he agrees and considers leaving. And then he remembers that even though he can’t feed without Daddy around, he can still play. Or in this case, get some information. Casting one last glance at the gym door, he plasters on his best smile and cocks his head a little. “But they’re also delicious, under the right circumstances.”

Pentecost’s face wrinkles in confusion. “What are you...”

But Chuck doesn’t give him room to protest. Nope, not at all. 

He’s on him in a flash, one hand behind his head, fingers against his short-shorn scalp, licking his other palm before sliding it into the Marshall’s sweatpants. “Just havin’ some fun, love,” he purrs in Pentecost’s ear, pushing in against his thoughts, straight through the confusion that’s rising up around his arousal. Well too fucking bad if Pentecost mostly likes girls; spit’ll do it every time. “Just curious about what you might be thinkin’.”

“This is highly inappropriate, Chuck...”

“You love inappropriate,” Chuck replies, and licks a stripe up Pentecost’s cheek, stroking his half-chubbed cock firmly. He might not be as good as Yancy, or even Raleigh, at this hypno thing, but from the way Pentecost is arching into him, he’s doing something right. He wraps another thread of arousal around the human’s pleasure center, and kisses him. “I can smell all of it on you. Don’t tell me the idea of being forced to suck off your youngest baby Ranger doesn’t make you all gooey inside.”

“Oh god,” Pentecost groans. “Chuck, you need to stop...”

“No you sweet little girl” - that’s what he likes, right? And Yancy’s right, this whole human obsession with gender and sexuality and labels and boxes is dumb, but hey, who’s he to question what makes a bloke hot under the collar? - “I think I should keep going.”

“Fuck, I can’t... I can’t...”

Pentecost practically has tears in his eyes. And okay, he’s kind of sweet like this, all aroused and desperate, but he’s not better than Daddy. Chuck can see what Yancy did to him last night, how into it Yancy was. All the affection that was poured out. Why can’t Yancy do that sort of thing with Daddy? What’s his goddamn problem? 

Doesn’t Yancy know how much Daddy loves him? Pentecost only sees him as a kink.

Fuck, it’s maddening.

“Hey, how about this? I’ll stop,” and Chuck squeezes, scraping his nails across the sensitive underside, clouding Pentecost’s mind even more with _need_ , “if you tell me why you’re taking the piss out of Yancy and Raleigh.”

+++++

On the way back to their quarters, the silence is deafening.

Yancy hasn’t felt like this much of a failure since he was twenty, and he couldn’t work the magic to make Richard stay.

Then, like now, it was his brother who suffered for it.

And seeing the look on Raleigh’s face - when Yancy tells him the truth, when the ADC comes back in and asks them if they need more time to discuss, when Herc answers for them all and tells the lawyer to start going through the options - just about breaks his heart.

Raleigh isn’t sad, or unhappy, or upset.

Nope.

None of those things.

 _You failed him,_ he can’t stop thinking, _you failed him again and he won’t forgive you for this._

They’re both getting court martialed. Him and Raleigh. The ADC wasn’t able to work a plea deal, not even one where Yancy plead guilty to negligence and failure to obey a direct order. Somebody up the chain wants some kind of show trial, something to prove to the civilians that they’ve got nothing to fear from the kaijuu.

“Won’t stop the Wall from getting built,” Herc had grumbled, as the lawyer went over their options.

Yancy had picked at a spot in the peeling laminate of the conference table, afraid to meet Raleigh’s eyes. He hadn’t gotten a chance to tell his brother about all that, and this was the way he had to find out. “My brother’s pregnant,” he’d mumbled. “They do know that, right?”

“I did let them know that his, umm, condition is going to make traditional confinement very difficult for him. Raleigh, they’ve agreed to confine you to the Sydney Shatterdome, as long as you meet certain monitoring requirements like...”

“The Sydney ‘Dome?”

“The US Air Force has already decided against any kind of judicial punishment for you boys. The UN is running this show. Based on that, I had a little wiggle room and this is what I asked for. Told them I thought it’d be a complete PR fuck-up to put a pregnant transman in jail.” The ADC smiled. “Actually, I told them I’d leak it to the press.”

“Why Australia?” Raleigh had asked.

The lawyer nodded at Herc. “That is why he’s here, isn’t it? No offense for the assumption, Ranger Hansen.”

“Why would I find that offensive?” Herc had asked tersely, and then pointed at Yancy. “What about him?”

“Lock-up, Pearl Harbor, pending the trial. I’m sorry, Yancy. Pending a clean bill of health from medical, you can probably expect to be bedding down there in the next few days.”

Which would suck enough on its own, this jail thing, if Yancy couldn’t feel the big black hole this has left inside his brother. No emotion. Nothing. Just a yawning emptiness.

It’s highly disconcerting. 

And there’s not a damn thing Yancy can do to help.

Raleigh’s not his anymore. 

Hit by the thought - not that it’s the first time he’s had it, but right now, it feels _real_ , in a way it hasn’t before - Yancy stops walking. Right in the middle of the hallway. Just watches for a moment. Herc’s got his arm around Raleigh’s waist, Raleigh’s head rested on Herc’s shoulder, and there’s something so sweet about the way Herc’s letting Raleigh loop a hand through his belt, holding on, supporting him, and...

Yancy can’t hardly breathe.

It’s not fair. It’s just... it’s not fair. 

“Hey guys,” Yancy calls, already backing up, “I’m going to go grab dinner out, while I still can, okay?”

“Yance?” Raleigh asks, turning around.

But Yancy can smell his brother’s tears, and Herc isn’t saying anything, and Yancy can’t do this right now. Not again. 

He just turns around. Walks in the other direction.

Hell, maybe this is for the best.


	11. Chapter 11

Raleigh’s discomfort grows with every step away from the conference room.

Daddy is holding him - of course he is. And Raleigh is cuddled as close to that comfort as he can get. Daddy’s arms are the best place in the world, but even this isn’t enough to stop the hole growing inside of him. This huge, heavy...

Oh shit.

Guilt.

That’s what it is. It’s guilt.

Guilt, because Yancy’s going to jail and he’s not. Because Yancy was going to take it all on himself, just to save his little brother. Guilt that he has Daddy and Yancy still calls him Herc and it’s not out of disrespect or stupidity but because the loss would kill him and Yancy can’t. Yancy can’t have anything, never takes anything, and he does it on purpose, does it out of love, out of duty, because Yancy’s been his daddy before this and now Yancy’s not even that anymore.

“I took everything,” Raleigh mutters, and stops up short, dizzy all of the sudden.

“What was that?” Daddy asks.

Raleigh bites his lip, trying to make sense of this. But it’s hard. It’s hard to think around this gnawing emptiness in his gut. “I took everything. We’re not supposed to take everything. That’s what Mom always said, that you can’t take everything, because you’ll use somebody up.” He looks up from the floor. “Yance, isn’t that what...”

But Yancy’s not there.

Daddy notices too, stiffening a little. “Fuck. Wait, Raleigh!”

Raleigh would love to listen to that - feels a very strong pull to obey that - but he can’t. He can’t.

He’s got to go find his brother.

He just has to.

Locating Yancy’s not hard. It’s an old trick, strengthened by the drift they share - shared, and Raleigh automatically puts a hand on his belly as he runs, realizing that for the first time. Gipsy’s gone. The plans for a second Mark-V are on hold. No more piloting. No more drifting.

His brother’s going to be further from him than ever now.

Even if the bastard doesn’t take off on him.

Which is exactly what it feels like. Which is exactly where Yancy is.

Raleigh catches him at the one of the little unguarded side exits, the ones nobody’s supposed to know about, one they like to use to sneak out to the clubs on nights when they’re in the mood for a little fun and don’t want a PPDC security detail tailing them. It’s a back storage room with an exterior exit, one of those places that serves as a graveyard for all the office equipment the ‘Dome can’t throw away. He doesn’t have to say anything; Yancy stiffens the second he catches his scent, through the shelves.

“What are you doing, Rals?” Yancy asks, as Raleigh draws closer. The tone is deceptively light, the same tone he uses on... and shit, how much does his brother lie to him? What is it that Yancy...?

“So? My brother’s taking off on me,” Raleigh protests and grabs the counter, a little faint from running down here, from the force of the guilt that’s churning in his stomach, and Satan below, that is truly a terrible feeling. Is this what Yancy feels all the time? Why hasn’t it driven him insane yet? “I don’t get a goodbye?”

“I’m just going out for a few hours. Clear my head, you know?”

“Clear your head? Fucking... you’ve got brain damage!”

Yancy just sighs, and heads for the door.

Raleigh grabs him.

The response is...

“Fuck off, dude!”

“What the hell is your problem?” Raleigh demands. “You said you were okay with this! The pregnancy, and...”

“I don’t have a problem with the baby.”

“Yeah, well it’s not worth losing you!”

“What are you saying?”

Raleigh swallows. “I... I don’t... I don’t need Da- Herc, I don’t need this, I can go get an-“

Yancy slaps him.

It’s the first, only, time Yancy has ever struck him outside the Kwoon, and the shock of it drops Raleigh straight into a broken chair. His hand goes out his belly again - that seems to be happening a lot, since he found out - and Yancy’s covers it.

“Don’t you dare,” Yancy hisses, knelt down next to him now. “You know how hard it is for us to get pregnant and what it means when we do. Don’t you _dare_ give something like up that just to get me to stay. Don’t fucking do that in my name.”

“But...”

“I’m happy for you, Rals. Really. Herc’s an amazing guy, and he’s a great dad, and you deserve that.” Yancy kisses his forehead. “I just need to go, okay?”

“It’s not okay,” Raleigh replies, more confused than before, grabbing for his brother before he can pull away. “Yance, I’m sure he would be okay if you mated him too.”

“Dude, I’m going to jail. I don’t think that’s an option right now.”

“Yeah, but I mean, like, afterwards, right? Just because they’re taking this to trial doesn’t mean they’re going to...”

“Rals, you are not talking sense right now. Come on. They have to pin this disaster on somebody. Major Heller can probably get you off, but I... I’m going to serve time.”

“You’re being an ass on purpose. There will be an after.” He grabs his brother’s wrist and lowers his voice. “You can be with him, with all of us, after.”

“Sure, kiddo, you know I’ll be there when I can be.” Yancy’s expression goes wistful. “But if I’m going to mate with a human, give that much of myself to a human, I want it to be because he wants me, not my brother. Herc just sees me as a means to an end, some fun on the side or whatever. He doesn’t want _me_.”

Raleigh can feel the hormones surging now, mixing with all this fucking grief, and it’s more than he can handle; he’s dangerously close to crying. “Then I don’t want him either.”

“Shh. You know and I know this wouldn’t have happened if you weren’t in love with him,” Yancy says and lays his other hand on his belly. 

“I don’t need him,” Raleigh tells him, defiant, and the tears are coming now. He can’t stop them, and in truth, he doesn’t want to, because Yancy can’t leave, he just can’t. “You took care of me just fine. You’ll take care of the baby too. I don’t need Daddy.”

“Yeah you do,” Yancy replies softly, smiling a little. He kisses him again. “You do need him.”

“I need you.”

“And I need to go eat, okay, honey? We can talk more when I get back.”

“You’re not going anywhere but back to the room, Yance. I’m done with this bullshit from you.”

It’s Daddy, over at the storage room door. Arms folded up, anger and irritation and something else - sadness, maybe, or regret - smoking out of him. Raleigh wipes the stupid tears from his cheeks, blinking at him. Of course Daddy’s here. And Daddy’s going to make everything better. If Yancy will let him.

“Herc, now’s really not the...”

“You’re going to do as I say, young man.”

And Yancy actually bares his fangs, lips curling up over them as he spits back, “fuck you, Herc, you’re not my daddy.”

“Don’t even start with me,” Daddy says, dangerously cold. “We might not share genetic material, but you are in goddamn need of some fatherly guidance right now.”

“Right. Cause you love talking so much,” Yancy grumbles.

“Boys. Room. Now,” Daddy orders in that same cold voice, and it hurts, it hurts to be spoken to like that by his daddy. Raleigh whimpers, curling into his brother’s shoulder, wrapping his arms around him.

There’s a hand stroking his hair now, and Raleigh looks up. Yancy’s fangs are back in, but his eyes are resigned. “Okay, Herc. Okay, I’m coming.”

+++++

Yancy’s hunger evaporates pretty much the second Herc shoves him back through the door to their quarters.

Chuck’s on the couch with his laptop, sweaty gym pants still clinging to his hips, shirt nowhere to be seen, headphones around his neck. He looks up as their little group crashes back into the room, just in time for Raleigh to crash into his lap.

"Aren't you going to squash the baby?" Chuck protests, but moves his computer anyway.

"Mm," Raleigh grunts, and crawls up to kiss him.

Yancy wants to say something, wants to scream, but he can feel that hole in Raleigh starting to fill up, even as the one in him is growing.

And the way Herc is looking at him...

Oh yeah. He is so fucked.

“Herc,” Yancy begins.

But Herc just holds up a finger, in a clear sign to shut up, and snaps his fingers at the boys on the couch. “Boys, be good and move for Daddy.” Chuck raises an eyebrow but does as he’s told, sliding off the cushions and taking up position instead at the table. Yancy tries to say something again, but Herc doesn’t give him the chance. “Yancy, strip.”

“What?”

Herc just gives him a _look_. “Daddy wants you naked. Right now.”

Something in Yancy’s chest tightens at the word _daddy_ , but he doesn’t budge. It hurts to not, but still. He has his pride, doesn’t he? “No.”

Herc’s expression goes flat, face unreadable. “You’re telling me no, boy?”

Yancy can feel his heart stutter, although he doesn’t quite understand why. “Herc...”

“You’ve been a very naughty boy today, Yancy. Do you really want to keep this up?” He sits down, quite deliberately, and kicks the coffee table out of the way. “Or do you want to be a good boy and strip?”

Yancy glances over at Raleigh and Chuck; they’re both watching with rapt attention, perched on the built-in desk that occupies the opposite wall. . This is some kind of make it or break it moment. Where it’ll lead them, Yancy’s got no idea, but he’s so tired. He’s tired of carrying all of this, tired of being the strong one, the one who bears all the responsibility for his entire family on his shoulders, and doesn’t he deserve something good?

Doesn’t he deserve to be punished for trying to run away?

“I’ll be a good boy,” Yancy says, the words wavering a little, swallowing before he says the next one, “Daddy.”

Herc only barely manages to catch his smile, but while his face may remain impassive, something warm in his chest blooms, bright enough for Yancy to see. Herc pats his knee. “You’re not a good boy though, are you Yancy?”

“No, Daddy,” Yancy says, kicking off his sneakers, pulling his clothes off as he walks over to the couch. Normally, he can do this all smooth and suave, but right now, in this moment, he’s shaking. “I’m not a good boy.”

“I know you’re not. But that’s not your fault.” Herc catches his hands and pulls him in. Flicking a pocket knife out of some concealed pocket in the top of his boot, he grabs the edge of Yancy’s briefs and slices them off. The tip of the blade grazes Yancy’s skin on the left side, just barely drawing blood, and Yancy shivers again as Herc licks him clean and guides him down. “How would you know how to be a good boy, without your daddy around?”

“My daddy left,” Yancy says before he can stop himself, straddling Herc’s thighs now, naked but for his socks. It’s been a long time since he’s given up control; he feels off balance, and lays his hands on Herc’s freckled shoulders for support. “Daddy left.”

“Richard was never your daddy, just a sperm donor,” Herc says soothingly, petting his cheek. “But I’m here now. And I’m going to teach you how to be a good boy for me.”

Yancy whimpers.

The spanking that comes is... well, illuminating, to say the least. It’s a strange feeling of vulnerability, being stretched out in Herc’s lap, ass in the air, with Rals and Chuck right there. The blows start out soft, a few warm-up strokes, almost gentle pats as Herc gets his aim. It feels good, good enough for Yancy to squirm a bit in Herc’s lap, positioning his cock a bit better against the human’s thigh. But that movement gets him a much harder slap, and he looks back up at Herc.

Herc just smiles at him. “You’re not being a good boy, Yancy.”

“I... oh shit!”

The next blow is hard. As is the next. And the next. And pretty soon, Yancy’s got tears in his eyes as Herc turns his ass bright red. There’s no sound in the room but flesh on flesh, the scent of arousal rising up through it all. Yancy is rock hard in the tight space between Herc’s leg and his own belly, erection almost painful. And the all the while, Herc is _talking_ to him.

“Do you know why Daddy is punishing you?”

“Yes sir...”

“Don’t lie. Do you know?”

“Yes sir, I was going out for dinner...”

“I said” - and the hardest smack yet, right at the point where his buttocks curl into his thigh - “don’t lie to me!”

Yancy tries to wipe his face off in the crook of his arm, but that only makes things worse. There’s snot and tears running freely down his cheeks and chin, a terrible feeling. But at the same time, every blow from Herc’s hands is somehow liberating. Freeing. Herc is telling him that it’s okay, that he doesn’t have to do this all alone, that somebody cares enough about him to tell him when he’s fucking up. 

“I was leaving,” he sobs, “I was leaving...”

“You were leaving your family! You were leaving me!”

“Daddy, no, no, I wasn’t leaving...”

“What did I say about lying?!”

The next few blows are as hard as Herc can deliver, that full jaeger-honed strength unleashed on him, and Yancy can’t hardly think from the pain of it. Herc’s hurting him, telling him he’s bad, showing him how bad he is, bad, bad because he was running, because he couldn’t accept himself for thinking...

“I love you,” he wrings out through the wracking breaths his body is fighting to take. “I love you, Daddy, please...”

And abruptly, the spanking stops. Yancy’s hauled upright so fast his head feels light, wings barely flapping out in time to help stabilize him, and he finds himself back in Herc’s lap, steely fingers holding his chin still.

“But you thought I didn’t love you, didn’t you?” Herc asks him with deceptive gentleness. “You thought your daddy didn’t care about you.”

“Daddy,” Yancy says helplessly and his ass is aching now, prickling with agonizing heat, whole body quivering, “Daddy, I didn’t...”

“Shh, I know.” Herc wipes his face a bit with the edge of his sleeve. “You didn’t know, but now you do, eh?

The tears won’t stop, but Yancy nods through them, collapsing forward into Herc’s shoulder, arms coming up around his neck. He feels small, smaller than he’s been in a long time, with Herc huge by comparison. Feels amazing, being wrapped up and held, and Yancy clings to it, everything else forgotten but this human’s touch.

“Oh, I love you my boy,” Herc murmurs in his ear, fingers sliding like sandpaper against the wreck they’ve made of Yancy’s ass. He licks up the front of one of Yancy’s horns, sending shivers clean through him. “My sweet, brave, strong-hearted boy.”

Yancy opens his mouth to say something, but it’s immediately lost in a moan - Herc’s got three fingers up his hole, and he is dripping wet.

“But you know, little boys are made from their daddy’s seed,” Herc whispers in his ear, fingers twisting slowly, one pushing further in to brush across Yancy’s prostate. “Need to fill you up to make you mine.”

Yancy closes his eyes, rubbing his cheek on Herc’s big, broad shoulder. “Want to be yours.”

“See? There’s my good boy.”

The fucking Herc dishes out is nothing like the spanking.

Herc is careful with him. Lifts him straight up to drop him down on his cock, slides right into him like he belongs there. He feels bigger than he did before, but Yancy can’t really find a reason to care about that right now. It’s all he can do to slide his knees up on either side of Herc’s hips and hold on as those big wonderful hands start to guide him up and down. 

Oh yes, Herc fucks him nice and slow, maybe like what Raleigh called _love-making_ the other day, rocking him back and forth in his lap, whispering sweet things in his ear, about how beautiful he must have been when he was going through the change, how innocent and debauched and tight and perfect, _my cute little virgin baby, blazing the trail for your little brothers,_ and Yancy’s not really sure when he comes himself, just that the orgasm he takes off Herc, when Herc finally spills inside of him, is the most intense he’s ever felt.

All is silent for a moment.

Then a familiar hand slides up his back, middle fingers teasing the soft furred at the base of his wings. 

“You should see yourself, Yance,” Raleigh murmurs in his ear.

Yancy looks down, stunned.

It’s his fifteen year old body. His scrawny, gangly, four inches shorter, not-quite-properly-proportioned fifteen year old body. 

“There’s my good boy,” Daddy praises.

And Yancy is suddenly aware again of how exposed he is. How he’s sprawled out across the lap of a man he can’t keep, how Raleigh is smiling at him, how Chuck is cuddling into Herc’s side and reaching for him, and he did this, he did this to Herc, made Herc think...

He pushes himself up, feeling empty the second Herc’s cock slides free, and flees for the bathroom.

+++++

When Herc saw Yancy’s horns change color, shorten, shrink down with the rest of him halfway through their love-making, he figured the boy might freak out.

So he takes a moment to make sure Raleigh and Chuck are okay - they seem, in fact, entranced, and have no problem curling up into each other on the couch, giggling, high on excess orgasm energy - and follows Yancy in the bathroom.

The boy’s just staring at himself in the fogging mirror. The shower is just on, but Yancy hasn’t gotten in yet. He is adorable like this, small and cute, wingspan much reduced, tail and wingtips a powder blue, instead of their normal steel gray. His tight little ass, leaking come, is painted black and blue and angry red from Herc’s ministrations. It won’t scar, won’t even bruise. It’ll fade in a few hours, and Yancy will no doubt return to his normal size by then too, but for now, Herc can enjoy it, can’t he?

“You don’t need to feel so guilty about everything,” Herc whispers in his ear, hugging him from behind. He plants a kiss on the younger man’s shoulder. His pretty little incubus. “Stop feeling guilty. That, back there, that was beautiful.”

“No, Herc, you... you don’t understand, I... back in Manila...”

There’s a truth here, Herc knows. One he can’t quite reach, can’t quite give voice to, like a dream that slips through his fingers when he reaches for it. A dream, like the one some sliver of memory, a moment. Him, Angela, so happy, so happy inside of her. A dream that he was straight once, and now he’s not.

“I know what you did,” Herc whispers, grabbing for that single whisper of an idea, even as Yancy turns around, horror in his eyes.

“Dad...”

“I mean, I know you did something. But it’s alright. No worries.” Herc puts a finger to his lips, because if he doesn’t say this now, he knows he never will. “I came to you that night because I trusted you, and I needed you. Whatever you did, I wanted it.”

“I wrecked you.”

“You saved me. Whatever you did, you saved me.”

Yancy puts a hand, one of his smaller teenage hands, over Herc’s heart. “I’m only here... you only feel like this about me, because of what I did to you.”

“Can’t magic love into existence, baby boy. And I love you. Whatever you did, you made it possible, but you didn’t create it.”

His boy’s eyes soften, emotions guarded, not nearly as loud as Chuck’s or even Raleigh’s, but still. Herc can feel the peace spreading through him. “Dad, we can’t... we’ll break the magic.”

“Can’t break what’s true.”

Yancy smiles a little, and leans into him, kissing him gently. “Do you mind if I take a moment? I need...”

Herc nods, and kisses his forehead, the base of his horns, feeling everything else fade back into the afterglow. “Take as long as you need. Thought we could watch a movie or something together.”

“Thanks, Dad,” Yancy murmurs, and slips free, blushing a little.

By the time Herc gets back to his other two boys, slots in between them and asks them to find some dumb action flick on the ‘Dome video library, he can’t remember what they were talking about back there in the bathroom.

No matter.

Yancy joins them during the opening credits, back to his normal body, bruised arse still proudly on display. Raleigh teases him and Chuck punches him and he settles in, propping up some pillows around his rear and asking who in the hell decided Armageddon was worth a view.

Herc sighs happily, and tells him to shut up.

His family’s together. All his boys. Finally. 

Everything’s right with the world.


	12. Chapter 12

The orders come down two days later.

Two sets.

Sydney for Raleigh. Pearl Harbor for Yancy. Preliminary hearings will be in three weeks, a highly expedited process according to that Major Heller, all part of the show, according to Daddy. 

Chuck’s not so sure about how this is all going to go down. After what the Marshall told him, it sounds like it’s far from a show trial. The seppo U.N. rep, Taylor, is pushing for this, some kind of backhanded political maneuver for a Canadian-led faction. Canada’s apparently pissed as hell about the environmental damage from the south-drifting plumes of Kaiju Blue, the currents wrong in the place where Gipsy engaged. The Canadians want blood. The Russians and the Chinese both want to see the US eat crow. But the Marshall had started babbling with need at that point, and Chuck had just gotten him off and left him in a messy puddle on the gym floor. 

He really needs to get Yancy to teach him some of the finer techniques of mind control - Daddy’s opinion, not his. Chuck thinks he did just fine.

Who gives a fuck about the politics? 

All it’s going to do is take his big brothers away from him.

“It won’t be so bad,” Yancy’s telling him as he packs up the third duffel of the morning. Everything they own is coming back with Raleigh to the Sydney ‘Dome, where Daddy’s already got the maintenance boys knocking down a wall and widening their quarters. He’s off taking care of the last-minute arrangements for the trip home, but Chuck wanted to stay and help his big brothers finish packing. 

The Beckets don’t have much in terms of personal effects, just a couple of scrapbooks Yancy snuck back and stole before Richard sold the house and disappeared. Raleigh’s sitting mutely at the table in the kitchen area, sorting photos out of one of those. Everything else is PPDC issue. Chuck supposes they’re going to have to start buying baby supplies now, diapers and those little one-piece jumpers and all the rest. It’s an odd thought, and he wonders what Raleigh’s going to look like when he really starts popping.

“Tendo’s stationed down there,” Yancy’s still saying, “and I’m sure he’ll come see me when he can. They’re fast-tracking the trial, so it’s not like I’m going to be sitting on my ass for a year. Plenty of guys around, and I’m sure at least some of them will be more than happy to keep me fat and happy.” He folds the last ugly, hand-knit jumper up and shoves it in the bag on top of the rest. “Your Uncle Scott’s at that facility, isn’t he?”

Chuck makes a face. “For a reason, sure.”

“Why is that, again?”

“I’ve no idea. Daddy never told me.” Chuck hands Yancy a stack of folded uniform shirts. They don’t have much in the way of civilian stuff, just a few sets for going out. Yancy’s already got those packed. “Is, umm, Tendo, is he...”

“He’s not human, if that’s what you’re wondering,” Yancy replies with a little smile that Chuck would like to believe is genuine. 

“But he’s not like us?”

“He’s a satyr,” Raleigh says from the table, without looking up. 

“Like the Greek goat things?”

“Not like. That’s what he is. Although I wouldn’t call him a goat to his face. He’s a little touchy about it.”

“He’s always got that Catholic shit hanging around, though. That, umm, the rosary, right?”

“Satyrs come in two varieties, kiddo. Celibate or in hiding.”

“What’s that got to do with anything?”

Raleigh does look up at that, exchanging a glance with Yancy. Yancy chuckles and taps Chuck’s nose. “Or they’re fucking another fae they can’t actually hurt. Heard Allison might fall into that category. C’mon, there anything else in the lockers?”

He raises an eyebrow. “So there’s really more than just us out there?”

“We aren’t exactly the only thing in that book we gave you, kiddo.”

“Did you want a photo of Mom?” Raleigh asks, brandishing a little 4.5 x 6 off the stack he’s perusing. 

“Naw. Other guys might think it’s jerk-off material. Keep those,” Yancy says lightly, and his expression falls almost immediately. “Oh, kid, don’t be sad.”

And Chuck looks back just in time to see Raleigh tearing up.

Yancy’s up before Chuck can say a word, heading over to the table to pull Raleigh up out of his chair and into a tight bear hug. Raleigh grabs on tight to Yancy’s shirt and buries his face in his older brother’s shoulder. “I don’t want you to go,” Chuck hears him mumble. 

“Baby boy,” Yancy murmurs back, and just rocks him.

Half an hour later - everything packed, and the three of them cuddled up on the couch together, Yancy making Raleigh promise him he’s going to send lots of letters and photos and everything else - Daddy’s back. With Marshall Pentecost. And the ‘Dome security personnel.

“Time to go, Yancy,” the Marshall says impassively.

Yancy does give Chuck a kiss goodbye. And, with a little smirk thrown in Pentecost’s direction, gives Raleigh one too.


End file.
